There have been a lot of tries at making a functional flying car over the years, but things haven’t really gotten off the ground yet, considering we aren’t all bopping from place to place like George Jetson. Burt Rutan from Scaled Composites has taken a new stab at a workable flying car with the Rutan Designs Model 367 “Bipod.”

It’s a bi-pod airplane with a 31-foot wingspan when you want it to be, and a seven-foot-wide, deliciously odd grocery getter when you don’t. There’s a lot that’s novel about the design, including its Chevrolet Volt-like gasoline generator powering electric motors that makes up its propulsion system.

Rutan also addressed the problem of unifying car and airplane controls by putting each set of controls in a separate pod. On the right, you have a yoke for when you’re airborne. On the left, the controls for travel on terra firma.

The Model 367 cruises at 100 miles per hour, and has an estimated range of 760 miles. Push it, and you can hit 200, but that knocks your range down to just 530 miles. For what it’s worth, Rutan says this will be his last project before his previously announced retirement goes into effect. See the complete press release after the break.

Continue reading Burt Rutan designs hybrid flying car

Burt Rutan designs hybrid flying car originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ed Welburn is the current head of design at General Motors, which means he has the tall task of pointing the company into the future without abandoning timeless designs by names like Harley Earl. As an exercise in getting in touch with his roots, Welburn has worked up a list of the top 10 Chevrolet designs of all time.

The list is populated with all the probable starters from Chevy’s century-long past. From the 1912 Classic Six, the first car to carry the Chevrolet name, to the 1936 Suburban and the 2011 Camaro, Welburn gives his impression of the importance of each design.

Welburn has been surrounded by cars his entire life, from his youth in his father’s body shop in Philadelphia to taking the helm at Chevrolet’s design department in 2003. Welburn has worked for General Motors since he graduated from Howard University in the early 1970s, so he his connection with Chevrolet designs, ahem, runs deep.

Feel free to click through the gallery below, which includes Welburn’s commentary on each iconic design. Alternatively, you can find it all in one place in the press release after the break.

[Source: Chevrolet]

Continue reading Ed Welburn’s Top 10 Chevy designs of all-time

Ed Welburn’s Top 10 Chevy designs of all-time originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seems that Hollywood may be on to something after all. According to Hisham Awad, Future Protected Vehicles project leader for British defense contractor BAE Systems, the Raider unmanned skirmisher was inspired by the Batmobile, or, more specifically, the Tumbler from the two most recent Batman flicks starring Christian Bale.

“Well, why not? In all seriousness, we decided that we didn’t have a monopoly on inspiration, and if we saw something in a film that we thought might be a good idea, why not take a look at it and see if there’s something practical we can develop?”

That’s a sound argument. “It turns like a motorbike and it has the same wheel configuration,” says Awad, though we also note a somewhat more conspicuous machine gun up top. Apparently, such a Hollywood/military connection isn’t all that rare – today’s troop carriers are said to be modeled after James Cameron’s armored vehicles from Aliens.

So, what’s next? Awad reportedly mentioned the Light Cycles from Tron, but we’re leaning more in the direction of The Green Hornet’s Black Beauty. Anybody got Kato on speed dial?

[Source: The Engineer via CrunchGear]

British defense contractor designs Batmobile for military originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 09:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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