Great Ideas for Cars

[G. Fieendish]

Re:HAL9000's post
I see that we're going retro, so to speak, as most of these ideas were promoted in General Motors Futurama stand during the late 50's/early 60's as part of "The Future of Motoring"....
(As for the "Pooh Powder", why does this somehow remind me of a scene in the William Gibson novel Idoru....?).

 

[purves grundy]

Indicators to indicate that you're going straight ahead

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I have had a jaccuzi fitted in mine. The only downside is that I have lost six seats of capacity. I have to keep the dehumidifier on when using the bath to stop the windscreen steaming up. It's a bit of a drag when you lose the soap just as the lights go green with all the traffic behind hooting.

 

[HAL9000]

Re:HAL9000's post
I see that we're going retro, so to speak, as most of these ideas were promoted in General Motors Futurama stand during the late 50's/early 60's.

Old ideas are not necessary bad ideas, take hybrid cars I believe all the mass produced versions are parallel type (i.e the electric motor and engine work together in parallel). Much cleaner car would be serial hybrid car were the engine acts as a generator and nothing else. This is not a new idea, many ships and trains work on this principle. Give it a few more years and.......
(according to wikipedia first serial hybrid car was in 1901)

One idea from the 50's which I can't see working is a flying car. You simply end up with an awful plane and awful car all rolled into one.

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re:HAL9000's reply to my last post
As I mentioned in my reply to one of your posts in another thread, this has already been done....
(A Japan only version of the Toyota Maxmia/Previa people carrier, was produced a couple of years ago (2005 ?), that used the principle you are proposing, though minus the batteries, as part of its 4WD system, in order to reduce it's complexity & cost...
Reportedly, the system was 200Kg lighter than it's nearest equivalent.....).

 

[Calva dosser]

I like those booze-ometers as I call them. Micras and Yaris' have them.

They tell you if you are driving at a rate that uses, say 3.9 litres per hundred KM. Then you can drink extra beers with all the petrol saved.

Actually, my old deisel Renault does that anyway. So bit pointless.

 

[steveo87]

when i was a nipper my dad had an old moris minor that had a big hole in the floor by the back seats - me and my sis loved it!!! didnt wee tho - just spat our chewing gum out of it.

My mum said that when she was young they had a morris minor called Sidney (WTF??).
It too had a hole in the floor, two in fact and she said that if you got the angle and timeing right that you could throw a piece of paper down one hole as it jumped back through the other.

 

[xenon]

Although I don't support the use of private cars regardless of powersource, I think the addition of a solar panel can help power electric frieght vehicles for longer, with less drain on power resources.

Aha.

When I asked in the science forum why cars aren't regularly fitted with solar panels, I was dismissed as not knowing much about power conversion. Which is true enough. My thinking though. Their sat outside most of the time. They have a reasonable surface area exposed to light. So why not. Even if it just stores a bit of power for the radio or charge a phone.

 

[Cobbles]

A hole in the floor for when you don't have time to stop to find a toilet

There was a Zaporozhets model in the 60's that had such a feature - designed so that you could drive the car out onto a frozen lake and use it for ice fishing rather than as a toilet.