The Curtiss Wright Aircar - The Hovercar That Almost,But Never Quite Made It

One of my favorite things about creating unsung heroes is when I come across a vehicle or have a vehicle suggested to me that is so outlandishly different from the norm that it could go very well or very badly and more often than not I tend to lean towards the latter. , which is unfortunate because some of these vehicles are really cool, kind of like a crazy aero study like the Pontoon Canam, which is my favorite episode. I've done something like a crazy steam-powered race car like the Lea Vapor, another of my favorites. as a fan of the ground effect many of us are familiar with in the form of Bram and Chapparal and various other ideas as well, although most of them don't tend to work, sometimes they literally don't even make it past the concept phase.

However, this one was very promising and in a funny way the idea behind the car has

never

really been a failure, it's just not necessarily the best suited for this application, so in that way it has some interesting parallels with the turbine gas, which of course is my favorite engine, but often has drawbacks when installed in a car or motorcycle due to its nature. Similar parameters apply this time, so to get into the history behind the air car as it is called. The 1960 Curtis Wright model 2500 is necessary. Research the company first because for those not familiar with Curtis Wright as a brand, there was actually an amalgamation of brands that brought together 12 different manufacturers in 1929 to form Curtis Wright and by the end of World War II they had become the only one The largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States with a current money equivalent value of $11 billion.

Now, after the war was over, they decided to focus their attention more on experimental vehicles, but still with military ties and one of the things the military could always use. Of course, vehicles are vehicles that can go anywhere, that's the goal of many of those vehicles, and as with many great inventions over time, you can have this kind of military bleed effect, which is a what I would mean when something is destined. for military use, but then inadvertently it can also benefit the mass audience and sometimes you see that in motorsports, sometimes in the military, sometimes in space travel, you will have things that somehow overflow into the broader commercial sphere and become something that many of us even use every day, for example, and that was certainly the intention behind the air car.

Now this particular vehicle seems to have had, from what I could find, about six or seven different shapes or at least six or seven of them in prototypes under construction, various ideas for production. military ideas and that could be wrong, but like I said, that seems to be the case from what I found now, several different websites have discussed the car with varying degrees of backstory and in-depth details, but the initial prototype dubbed the Hippo It had an 85 horsepower Continental engine, could rise up to 12 inches off the ground and reach a speed of about 35 mph, so that's a pretty good start.

They tested the vehicle and found that it could reach about 35 mph on flat terrain and even over water in a very A promising start, problems began to arise, however, when they took the car onto an uneven surface and that is inherently a problem because Of course, in a war situation or virtually any military situation, you're not going to be driving on a smooth surface most of the time. At the time, water was fine, but dirt, which was something else, even a slope or hill would drastically affect the car to the point of not being viable. Now of course Curtis Wright wanted to save the idea, so they turned more towards commercial applications and produced a number of different versions around 1959 and 1960, finally the project was abandoned completely in 1961, but as far as I could tell found in 1969, they produced a single-seater with a glass roof, a seating variant and even a utility version, SL truck type, you know, airport.

A sort of utility vehicle with clear military ideas behind it and then in 1960 we have the proposed production model which is the one I'm focusing on more in this video and certainly the most famous version and a twers design dubbed being like in Bumblebee and I would say the second most fascinating thing about this car, behind its powertrain, is actually its size. This car is much larger than I would initially lead you to believe when you look at a photo of the car without In context it doesn't look that big, it looks like a two seater convertible of some kind, pretty forgettable in terms of design, it just looks like a big box Indeed, this is a very large car, measuring 21 feet long, 5 feet high and, notably, 8 feet wide. which dwarfs most modern supercars and that led to a unique seating arrangement in this vehicle because it's a four seater but you sit four side by side which really highlights how wide this car was now, the Vehicle is powered by two engines, of course.

It powers two independent four-blade fans that direct air down and then to the sides of the car, in addition to that initial lift which of course it causes, it has sets of grilles that can be opened and positioned in different ways to make the car moving backwards. and of course driving very similar to a hovercraft, but only with a car body, now each of those motors produces around 180 horsepower, so it's a significant improvement compared to the prototype, but as far as I can tell, it wasn't too fast. The car has some quoting speeds up to 50mph, the general consensus seems to be more like 38 again on flat roads and off-road, and there are some pretty interesting images of the car even being tested in Daytona Beach where you can see it in action.

Now, of course, one of the inherent problems with having a hovercraft type vehicle as modern hovercraft would demonstrate and certainly in the past is that they don't tend to be the most precise, they move, twist and shift in very broad strokes. There is nothing precise about a hovercraft, it requires a large area and imagine if this had become the norm, how many cars you would have floating around each other moving between lanes by inexperienced people driving them, it would probably be a pretty dangerous system even just in 30 mph and by the way, controlling the car is done in a familiar and unfamiliar way, it has a steering wheel like a normal car, but as you can see again in some of those videos, instead of an accelerator pedal, it has a lever or boat style lever. in the center of the car where the throttle is adjusted is an interesting system to get used to but of course the main thing would be the steering which wouldn't look anything like a normal car now in case you were wondering about the fuel savings in practice. like if you're really going to buy one, the car actually has two independent fuel tanks of 20 gallons each and that's enough for 2 hours of use with those fuel tanks, so it's not exactly the most economical option, but It is certainly a different option.

I might say, and incidentally go back to the proportions of the car for just a second, although it was physically large, especially in terms of length and width, it was actually not as heavy as one might assume and of course that was mainly due to to the need. The car has to be as light as possible to effectively lift it and make it maneuverable, but it actually doesn't weigh that much at 2770 lb, which, especially for a late 50s/early 60s American car, is

quite

a bit. awesome; In effect, it is a combined sports car. The 360 ​​horsepower could easily rival a Corvette of the era, for example, and the weight is very good too, so on paper it's actually an impressive car in practice, although it had too many flaws. inherent to be viable now, interestingly, although the project, as I said, was completely closed in 1961, you can still interact to some extent with this vehicle because one of them is still located in Virginia at the US Army Transportation Museum I'll probably include a picture of that car in its US military style.

The makeup isn't exactly in perfect condition, but it still looks pretty good and a second one, which you can also find images of on Google, is seen at very poor condition and can be seen on eBay or at least in 2015 where the car was listed. Sold completely unrestored. I'm not sure what the price was or if it sold, but it's interesting to see that for a car that could have easily been completely destroyed or lost to time, at least some remains of it. technically it still exists, it's not the kind of car you probably restore and use all the time, but it would make a very nice collector's item or certainly a museum piece.

I'm actually a little surprised no one picked up that car to do just that. or maybe they did ultimately, although this is easily one of those episodes similarly to the car we reviewed with a huge fan in the front whose failure is obvious, of course it failed on recall, but I still applaud them for try something strange. different and of course in the '50s and '60s America was all that kind of thing with concept cars with gas turbines and air cars like this, some of them for military use, some of them commercial and some of them like this with a bit of Ultimately I think it's an unsung hero, less because of the impact it might have had on the motoring world in general, and more simply because it's a cool, quirky car that's easily overlooked and deserves more attention, but in general, that's it for this installment of Of course, if you're new to the unsung heroes, make sure to click on the playlist here on the screen to see all the previous episodes and of course, if you want Vote for this car in the popularity polls, also click on the link below to go.

Go to the Discord chat and support this car if you love it, but that's it for this installment. See you next time and for now, as always, thanks for watching.