Looking at the old magazines, you can find truly wonderful and incredible designs of devices and mechanisms, moreover, actually built. Not models, but we can say - prototypes. Why and why they did not go into the series and "did not change the world" is hard to say - maybe not everything is as rosy as these articles describe, or maybe the "world conspiracy".
In the December 1932 issue of Popular Science magazine, an article was published about an unusual car. I must say that the device impressed the editors so much that it was placed on the cover. We also read about the incredible pneumatic car.
The four-blade propeller has mesh protection.
Climbing steep hills covered in slippery ice is just one feat that is possible for the curious air car recently tested in Detroit, Michigan. A four-blade propeller driven by a 100-horsepower engine pulls it like an airplane. Since the wheels rotate freely without being driven by the engine, they do not need to cling to the ground like on a conventional machine. Hence, the pneumatic vehicle can travel on muddy roads or climb slippery hills without any problem.
The view is unsightly, but faster, more economical, more spacious!
To keep the car on the road when traveling at high speeds, the front of the upper body is tilted so that the airflow from the propeller pushes the car down. According to test results and a report from the inventor, the five-foot propeller quadruples conventional rear-wheel drive wheels, and allows six to eight people to be easily transported.
Page from Popular Science, December 1932.
The strange machine, with a 132-inch wheelbase and weighing about 1,500 pounds, is said to reach eighty miles per hour (130 km / h) and cover thirty miles per gallon of fuel (50 km by 4.5 liters).
Promotional video:
