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We’ve seen monowheels before, but what made J.H. Purves’s design different from the rest was that it could stand up on its own. Allegedly, it could go up to thirty miles an hour. But as you can see from the above photo, it had at least one serious design flaw.
Link -via Retronaut | Photo via Douglas Self
Can’t afford to tow your baby Corvette with a full-sized one? Then maybe you could use a pedal-powered Porsche instead.
Via BoingBoing
by John Trinkaus, Baruch College, City University of New York
John Trinkaus was awarded the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize in literature for meticulously collecting data and publishing more than 80 detailed academic reports about things that annoyed him. Since that time, he has repeatedly gotten annoyed, collected data, and written monographs.
This new study is the third in a series Professor Trinkaus is publishing in the Annals of Improbable Research. The first, “Hand Sanitizing: An Informal Look,” appeared in AIR 15:6. The second, “Hand Sanitizing: Another Look,” appeared in AIR 16:3.
(Image credit: Flickr user purplemattfish)
To glean some indication as to the number of drivers who clean the snow off their vehicle’s roof, and the number of people who shovel snow off fire hydrants, a small, informal enquiry was conducted during the first two days following a major snowstorm during the winter of 2010. The locale was a suburb of a large city in the Northeast.
What Was Noted When
On the morning of the first day following the storm evidence of passenger vehicle roof cleaning — as contrasted with merely clearing a viewing port for the front and rear windows — was observed.
On the second morning, fire hydrant snow clearing was noted. Some owners of homes near a fire hydrant sometimes choose to clear a working area around the hydrant — to permit fire persons access in case of an emergency.
Day 1 — Details
On the first morning the writer positioned himself beside the two city-bound lanes of a 4 lane state highway. As passenger vehicles passed their roofs were viewed for the presence of snow.
For the purpose of this study, they either had snow or they did not have snow. If a vehicle surface had both clear and snowy sections, it was not counted for there was no way of telling if some snow had been purposely cleared or simply had been blown off as the vehicle was driven. If the roof was clean and dry, without any trace of snow, again, for the purpose of this enquiry, it was not counted. It was assumed that the vehicle had been garaged during the storm. Of the 1,000 “qualifying” vehicles noted, 473 (47%) were sedans and 527 (53%) SUV’s (sport utility vans). One hundred forty-two (30%) of the sedans had roof snow, and 469 (89%) of the SUV’S had roof snow.
Day 2 — Details
On the second morning, the writer drove through the area consisting or modestly sized and priced single family homes observing fire hydrants. For the purpose of this enquiry, only two states of the world were considered: the area around the hydrant was purposely cleared, or it was not. If there was a question of “status,” no note was made. One hundred hydrants were observed. Nineteen (19%) were cleared; eighty-one (81%) were not.
(Image credit: Flickr user chbrenchley)
Limitations
The methodological limitations of this study, such as subjective judgment, the use of only one observer, convenience sampling and the inability to replicate the enquiry, are recognized.
Similarly, acknowledged are such setting boundings as: use of a single community, absence of consideration of any applicable ordinances, lack of consideration of prevailing cultural norms and practices, and the want of factoring for other variables, such as day of the week and the prevailing weather following the storm.
Thoughts About The Findings
However, it might well be reasonable to advance some thoughts about what the findings or this enquiry could suggest about social morality. Ease seemingly plays an important part in the practice of social morality. If it is not too difficult for folks to do, they will probably do what society says is right. Removing snow from the roof of a sedan is certainly less of a job than clearing snow from the roof of a SUV. Too, leaving snow around a fire hydrant is easier to do than shoveling it away. Surprisingly, self interest does not appear to be too much of a modifier. Removing snow from a vehicle roof makes for safer driving. Removing the snow from a fire hydrant makes for more effective and efficient fire-fighting.
Satellite image, taken two days after a snow storm of the general region containing the suburb (of a large city) where this study was conducted. Photo prepared by Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.
_____________________
This article is republished with permission from the July-August 2010 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
Japan takes its subcultures very seriously and while many of them, like rockabilly, goth and lolita, have some sort of equivalent in the U.S., Dekotora (the lavish decoration of a semi) doesn’t. You can find out more about this culture and see some amazing pictures of these blinged out trucks over on Flavorwire.
Ordinarily, car thieves aren’t exactly people to look up to, but when one criminal broke into a van in New York and realized it was filled with explosives, he didn’t just run away and hide, he didn’t even wait to call the police. Instead, he took action and drove the van to an isolated waterfront area and then reported the van -along with how he found out about the explosives. In honor of his civic-mindedness, police neglected to even file charges against him.
Read about other criminals with hearts of gold over at Cracked.
Behold, the first military vehicle created via crowdsourced design! Called the FLYPmode, it was developed in part by an ex-marine, who knows what advancements need to be made to help save lives on the modern battlefield. Built to withstand explosive blasts, the likes of which account for most of the recent deaths in the Middle East, FLYPmode was made in less than four months and represents the future of military tech: innovative vehicle designs that can be built quickly with modern combat needs in mind. If you’re interested, you can see the fascinating designs that led to this concept vehicle at the Local Motors link below. Will bloated defense budgets become a thing of the past, when we design the vehicles of the future for ourselves?
Link Image via Local Motors.
Through the ages, the classiest cars always had fancy hood ornaments. They began as radiator caps and continued even after the caps retreated under the hood. They began to disappear in the 1960s, so now you only see them on fine classic cars -or as art objects by themselves. See a wide variety of all kinds of hood ornaments at Dark Roasted Blend, from familiar logos to one-of-a-kind artworks. The ornament shown here graces a 1931 Packard Eight. Link
(Image source: Second Chance Garage)
Do you ever drive on roads that feel like you’re driving on a washboard?
When I visit northern Minnesota, I always encounter a road that in midsummer becomes classically “washboard.” The county sends out a road grader to smooth it and give it a new crown, and a few weeks later it’s a washboard again.
Minnesotastan looked up the physics of why this happens. The explanation includes a video that led to the discussion of the word “widdershins” in the comments. Link
(Image credit: David C. Mays)
By the hand of Old Red Jalopy, we get to see what some classic movie characters -who happen to be cars- would look like if they were in the new Pixar film Cars 2. This one is, of course, the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard. See the other six at NextMovie. Link
When gasoline was rationed or nonexistent during World War II, many cars were converted to run on firewood. The trend is making a comeback of sorts as gas prices rise higher and higher. See some of these cars and find out how it’s done at Low-Tech Magazine. Link -via the Presurfer
If I am honest, I don’t get the reason you would need a six-wheeled off-road vehicle with a DJ booth hidden inside. I guess if you have to start literally playing the backwoods, this thing might come in handy. It can also be configured to handle projectors for movies as well. link
EP Industries manufactures pumps, dry-cleaning equipment, firefighting equipment, military equipment, and other types of metal fabrication. But they have a fun side, too. Inventor and company founder Eddie Paul designs and builds mechanical sharks. And he creates custom vehicles to appear in and to promote movies, like the real-world versions of the cars from the Pixar movie Cars. Link
1. The Monowheel
In 1869, French craftsman Rousseau of Marseilles built the first in history’s line of unsuccessful monocycles. Sitting inside the monowheel, the rider steered the contraption by shifting his or her weight in the desired direction. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, the massive outer wheel remained directly in the driver’s line of sight at all times. Braking was also potentially hazardous, as stopping too abruptly would cause the rider to be propelled forward along with the outer wheel. But perhaps the biggest strike against the monowheel was the immediate comparison of any rider to a gerbil -something even the French wouldn’t tolerate.
2. The Daihatsu Trek
It’s a car! It’s a bed! It look suspiciously like a child’s toy! For the outdoorsman who has everything except a really expensive Big Wheel, there was the Daihatsu Trek. A single-passenger off-road vehicle, the Trek not only allowed drivers to travel to remote areas, it also gave them a place to bed down for the evening. With its collapsible seat, steering wheel, and roll bar, the boxy monstrosity from 1990 offered all the comforts of a really cheap motel room. And while we can’t be sure why the car never made it past the concept stage at Daihatsu, we can only guess members of the off-road focus groups felt silly driving a Transformer.
3. The Avrocar
A quasi hot potato of international engineering, the Avrocar was initially funded by the Canadian government, designed by a British engineer, and eventually assumed by the U.S. Defense Department as part of the Cold War weapons race. The UFO-like contraption was 18 feet in diameter, but only 3 feet thick. It featured vertical takeoff and landing and was designed to reach speeds up to 300 mph while remaining elusive to radar. Unfortunately, the two-person craft was never able to stabilize at heights above eight feet, nor travel faster than 35 mph. After eight years and more than $10 million, the project was abandoned in 1960.
more …
“If you’re looking for a 1960 model, this may well be it.” Those were big words back in 1948, when this short documentary was produced by Popular Mechanics. Which will it be: a three-wheeled golf cart that resembles a flying saucer, an airstream camper on wheels, or a souped-up model T with the dashboard of an airplane? Link -via Nag on the Lake
This Friday’s Museum of Possibilities offers ideas for specialized vehicles that fulfill a range of purposes not usually desired nor requested by the auto-buying public, at least not within a single vehicle. Not to be deterred by the clear lack of demand for such vehicles, I have designed a few. The impulse to add unasked-for capabilities to the ordinary automobile is not easily explained. Even the possibility that these capabilities will not work as I have suggested does not deter me.
Would I want to drive a 1990 model sports car while it was in Wash Cycle? Probably not. Would a drum dryer that rotated around the outside of the car muffler actually work? Maybe, but it might be so small as to be nearly useless. And if the car overheated while in traffic or on a long grade, the clothes inside the dryer might bake. That is, unless there was a thermostatically-activated muffler baffle installed.
Remember, the purpose of the Museum of Possibilities is to investigate possibilities, and not to get too hung up on practical matters!
The present drying up of jobs available to low- and middle-income Americans is leading to a drastic and largely unexpected phase change in the way we live and get around. Imagine what would happen if an ever-increasing percentage of the population could no longer afford a roof overhead or basic transportation. Norms for what are now considered “acceptable” lifestyles would be revised downward. Being homeless might be considered somewhat “normal”!
Yet Americans are famous for their ingenuity. They like to believe that “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Perhaps a new class of mobile dwellings called motorless homes will evolve. They will be muscle-powered!
For this Friday’s Museum of Possibilities, I’ve decided to spare readers from having to read a lengthy text – occasionally longwinded and self-referential – by offering my concept in comics format. The reader will only need to scan a very few sentences to get the point.
While I may not possess a perfect understanding of all the factors contributing to the ludicrously high cost of auto insurance – jacked up in part because of the nation’s car chassis worship – I am glad to suggest a solution: Automobiles could be pre-wrecked at the factory. Auto manufacturers already have the necessary expertise to design robots capable of pounding, denting, “keying,” and scratching a new automotive finish without compromising functionality or safety. Engineers would be able to design underlying structures so that wiring, airflow and access by mechanics remained intact.
Would I buy a pre-dented car? No, not unless it became the new standard for automotive beauty. Until then, I would let others be early adopters.
During the short seven months (August 2, 1990–February 28, 1991) that the Gulf War raged in the Middle East, I was at work on a book, Public Therapy Buses, Information Specialty Bums, Solar Cook-A-Mats and Other Visions of the 21st Century. The book, published by St. Martin’s Press in September 1991, featured my half-serious predictions for the coming decades. At the time, I could not help but notice the popularity of the U.S. military’s Humvee, so it was not much of a stretch to imagine that versions of those rugged, menacing truck-sized vehicles would become a successful consumer item. I predicted the arrival in the not distant future of Mean Cars. I wrote:
Auto stylists, ever sensitive to shifts in the collective mood, detect an angry, defensive attitude in Americans and offer them the road-hugging, angular, “tank” look in mottled, spattered, or camouflage colors. Cars have narrow slots for windows, body armor, bullet-proof glass and teargas guns.
My prediction was substantially accurate. Not only would car models start looking meaner, they would get larger and heavier. The Hummer became an instant commercial success even if the few who bought them, including California’s Governor-to-be Arnold Schwarzenegger, had no need for such a mammoth vehicle for grocery shopping or commuting to work.
The chart shows the steady growth in sales of SUVs after the Gulf War until around 2005, when demand began to sputter. In 1990, what I had failed to imagine was how the future mix of vehicles, which offered a more extreme range in the size and mass of passenger vehicle models, would co-exist on the streets and highways of America. I had not foreseen how the success of the Light Truck vehicle segment (mostly SUVs) would create a dangerous disparity in weight and mass compared with compact cars. And then there was the problem of seeing over these tall vehicles! Lined up at an intersection, a compact car could now be stuck inside a “canyon” of tall cars.
I proposed a variety of ways to enable the small car driver to see over and around SUVs. My first concept was the Rooftop Periscope Sedan, shown in pink. It seems crude and comical to me now. In the inset above, a goldenrod-painted vehicle has an improved design, with a video camera atop a telescoping mast which slides inside a vehicle pillar.
In 1936, Sh?nen Club magazine published an illustrated article entitled “World Transportation Invention Competition,” which took a look at the future of transportation.
The illustrations don’t look anything like the beater I drive.
Link – Via Laughing Squid
In the fall of 1983 I experienced a prophetic flash: At some time in the future, automobile chassis design would no longer be constrained by a rule that dictates that a car body be bilaterally symmetrical. Of course, I knew that almost all living creatures are bilaterally symmetrical – with a few exceptions like the flatfish that has two eyes on the same side of its body. But with most fauna and even many flora, the two sides are identical, arranged along an axis in mirror fashion. I wondered if there would come a time when auto designers no longer felt the need to mimic nature but instead could try out new forms. I drew several examples of car models that I foresaw.
Traditionally, automobiles were designed to be symmetrical from left to right side, and asymmetrical front to back. Thinking about this, I realized there were several problems with my vision of asymmetrical cars in the future. First, cars move faster through the air when their exterior body is shaped smoothly. Complex air currents that are caused by an uneven surface tend to slow a vehicle. Second, while consumers like novelty, they are conservative in their attitudes about what they consider beautiful or graceful. The Ford Edsel, for instance, was mocked and shunned by most car buyers because it was viewed as ugly.
But times are changing. For the 2008 model year, Nissan introduced the Cube, one of the first production cars offered for sale in the United States that included an asymmetrical design feature. Darkened glass hid the right rear pillar, which was painted black to further conceal it. This was a car intentionally designed for rebels, Slackers and the younger generations, persons who have a taste for irreverent, post-modern and whimsical design. To many elders, the lack of a D-pillar might seem disturbing, as if the car is off balance.
The Nissan Cube broke a design taboo! Now there is an opportunity for auto designers to mount an all-out effort to design cars that are cheerfully asymmetrical, unusual looking and painted in distinctive, randomly-applied colors on unusually-shaped body panels. I believe that trends have converged to make it possible for my 1983 prediction to come true. These trends include just-in-time manufacturing, computer-aided car body modeling and strong but ultra-light materials. Cars that older generations would regard as horribly misshapen just might become the new standard for vehicular beauty. After all, in some urban areas –Los Angeles comes to mind – motorists long ago concluded that driving a car is an act of madness, a surreal commitment to willingly perform a dangerous act, but an act that for much of the time involves driving at no more that 3 miles an hour during the miss-named “rush” hour. Why shouldn’t cars celebrate each owner’s uniqueness, and offer the possibility that the freeway itself will become a slow-moving, crazy, mardi-gras-style car fashion show?
We know that for most days a typical car is driven for as few as 40 miles, at speeds of less than 25 miles per hour. Where, then, is the need for all those sleek, aerodynamic cars that are designed as if they must move through the air as fast as bullets? Many folks now express an interest in slowing down. Restaurants have appeared that offer Slow Food in a relaxed and peaceful dining atmosphere. There are even restaurants that offer an opportunity to dine in total darkness! Some cities in Europe are advertised as Slow Cities. The new whimsically-designed, asymmetrical automobile would mock the need for speed. The brochure could proudly claim that it failed all wind tunnel tests, that it was literally resistant to speeding! You read it here first: Slow vehicles are the next car trend.
Photo: Joe Stevens
“Vans and the places where they were” is a project by filmmaker/photographer Joe Stevens that artfully presents… a bunch of vans. Each photo frames the subject identically, yet the vans and the locales are various, shot over the course of 13 years and counting.
Vans and the places where they were documents surviving custom and conversion vans across the West and examines the dialogue which exists between a van’s design aesthetic and that of its surrounding environment. The project began in 1996 and currently consists of hundreds of images shot on 120mm film.
Did you know you can modify an old bumper car into an actual minicar? The results are pretty cool looking, as evidenced by these cars made by Tim Wright.
Jalopnik asked its readers for suggestions on what vehicles would be best for surviving and traveling in a post-apocalyptic world. Nine existing vehicles and one semi-fictional vehicle made the cut. Pictured is the Dobbertin Surface Orbiter.
Built out of an old milk tanker, the Orbiter was designed to circumnavigate the globe on land and water, which is good for when you’re on the move and forced to deal with the suddenly changing seasons that the nuclear fallout will likely bring. And like all good survival vehicles, it comes complete with a kitchen and porta-potti.
Link -via the Presurfer
The story behind this saga of the mysterious old car collection is long, twisted and still uncertain. Some time ago someone anonymously posted pictures of dozens or more classic cars covered in dust and apparently hidden away in a barn.
As the story made its rounds of the internet speculation grew. The most credible-seeming story comes from someone who claims to have tracked down the owner – a retired businessman who kept the best cars from his car-sale days for himself.
While it would be nice to imagine that someone simply found this amazing stash of cars it is clear that such a thing does not simply assemble itself – so this story appears to make the most sense. But, to this day, no one really knows for sure.
Since I put up these pictures here at the beginning of February 2007, the story of the Portugese barn full of classic and not-so-classic cars seems to have taken on a life of its own. The interwebs have been abuzz with theories and somebody has even gone to the trouble of making up a story about it. Classic car lovers, treasure hunters and auction houses have all somehow contacted intuh.net in an effort to find out more. In order to stem the flow of e-mails and even telephone calls: here’s all I know.
ISO Quality Planning, a company specializing in helping insurance companies identify risk, has compiled a list of the most heavily ticketed vehicles on the road, and lead feet everywhere can check it out.
The group analyzed traffic data on 1.7 million drivers and established the probability of a driver of a given line of vehicles being ticketed. The Hummer and Scion tC dominated the list, receiving 463% and 460% over the average, respectively. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Jaguar XJ sedan and the Chevrolet Suburban attracted a mere 11% and 16% of expected tickets. Given that both the Hummer and the Jaguar are high-cost vehicles, it flips the idea that a huge price tag automatically means more police attention.
Link - via lifehacker
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
Ever wondered what it would be like to travel in a jet-powered porta-potty? Me neither. Seeing someone else doing it still is interesting though. It’s every ten year old boy’s dream come true -a whole collection of jet and rocket powered vehicles, including fire trucks, recliners, tractors and more. Plenty of speed record holders here kiddos, so click the link and have fun exploring the speedy side of life.
