Okay,
the 1956 Oldsmobile above is a bit of advertiser's licence to sell a
new "hover-matic" suspension system, but I think it's true to say that
you can be fairly sure that you've passed over into the FUTURE when
your car ceases to have wheels. Thing is, wheels are bit a
necessary item, what with friction and all, so, unless you
happen have an anti-gravity device handy, some major
technological advances were going to have to come about if the
hovercar was ever going to become a reality.
By
the 1960s the hovercraft came floating along on a cushion of air and
we were apparently on the verge of having wheel-less hovercars at
last. Soon, it seemed, we'd be leaving our tired old Fords and
Vauxhalls for spanking new models that would glide along without bump
or friction.
Arthur C. Clarke imagined that the coming of the
hovercar would be a revolution in transportation unheard of since Ogg
figured out how to make that rolly thing. The hovercar
wouldn't need metalled roads, just a more or less level surface to
skim over. Motorways would be left to crack and moss over,
saving billions in road maintenance without hindering traffic in the
least. In many parts of the world, roads would become totally
obsolete and moving passengers and goods over plains and deserts would
simply be a matter of pointing your machines in the right direction.
In fact, the greatest problems that the authorities
would face would be the fact a hovercar could go anywhere.
Clarke foresaw a time when landowners would ring their property with
barbed wire and strategically placed boulders to keep out trespassing
picnickers and when even the most remote cay or atoll of the Great
Barrier reef became just another spot for a holiday home.
But
the family hovercar is still about as far away as the jet pack and the
food pill. True, we have plenty of hovercrafts that have found
all sorts of applications from amphibious assault craft to oil rig
tenders to recreational vehicles to lawn mowers. But hovercars?
Unless you are okay with a machine that gulps fuel standing still and have very understanding neighbours who are willing to put
up with the noise, the air wash, poor brakes, and the nasty tendency
of hovercrafts to slide about in a breeze, I think you'd better keep
the Honda for a while.
Okay,
the 1956 Oldsmobile above is a bit of advertiser's licence to sell a
new "hover-matic" suspension system, but I think it's true to say that
you can be fairly sure that you've passed over into the FUTURE when
your car ceases to have wheels. Thing is, wheels are bit a
necessary item, what with friction and all, so, unless you
happen have an anti-gravity device handy, some major
technological advances were going to have to come about if the
hovercar was ever going to become a reality. 
By
the 1960s the hovercraft came floating along on a cushion of air and
we were apparently on the verge of having wheel-less hovercars at
last. Soon, it seemed, we'd be leaving our tired old Fords and
Vauxhalls for spanking new models that would glide along without bump
or friction. 
But
the family hovercar is still about as far away as the jet pack and the
food pill. True, we have plenty of hovercrafts that have found
all sorts of applications from amphibious assault craft to oil rig
tenders to recreational vehicles to lawn mowers. But hovercars?
Unless you are okay with a machine that gulps fuel standing still and have very understanding neighbours who are willing to put
up with the noise, the air wash, poor brakes, and the nasty tendency
of hovercrafts to slide about in a breeze, I think you'd better keep
the Honda for a while.