
December 5th 19, 03:18 AM
posted to alt.binaries.pictures.aviation
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Google Billionaire Beaten To Market By This Gorgeous 65-Year-Old Flying Car [1/8] - Taylor Aerocar 3.jpg (1/1)
Miloch wrote in
:
https://jalopnik.com/google-billiona...by-this-gorgeo
us-65-1840211205
It is probably fair to say that the Taylor Aerocar was not a
particularly good car, nor was it a particularly good plane. Only five
were ever made, one of which being a prototype. But that’s still more
than Larry Page’s now-delayed Kitty Hawk project, and you can even buy
an Aerocar.
That is, you can buy one of the Aerocars. This one is going up for
sale at Barrett-Jackson at Scottsdale 2020, held in early January.
https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Even...-TAYLOR-AEROCA
R-236076
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremyb...side-larry-pag
es-kitty-hawk-returned-deposits-battery-fires-boeing-cora/#6363858b58ab
Price is just “no reserve” but someone appears to have listed a Taylor
Aerocar for about $1 million (600,000 pounds) a few years back, as the
New York Daily News reported at the time.
How it drove was a bit funky, as the Hemmings noted in a 2013 profile:
Still primitive by automobile standards of the day, the Aerocar
featured an air-cooled Lycoming flat-four engine, positioned over the
rear wheels. A three-speed manual transmission provided drive to the
front wheels, and this road transmission was simply placed into
neutral when the Aerocar was in flight mode. Part of the conversion
process from automobile to airplane involved the fitting of a tail
cone and propeller assembly, which was driven by a power take-off
located behind the rear license plate.
And while the market for the car never took off, with its limited top
speed on the road (60 miles per hour) and complications being a plane
(everything folded away, which was not exactly a one-person job of
re-installation) the Taylor Aerocar remains the only thing that
approaches being an actual flying car. I mean, it’s more of a
road-legal plane, but how can you be mad at it? Look at this little
thing! It’s adorable.
Some of us remember the old Bob Cummings Show.
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