It seemed like a good idea at the time: 9 car designs that went nowhere

Ford Motor Company had a better idea, as it once advertised, producing such iconic cars as the Mustang, Bronco, Thunderbird, and Model T. But it also built the ill-fated Edsel. Ford wasn't alone, either; many inventors and engineers have produced cars that seemed like a good idea until they actually acted on it. Here are a few examples.

1899 Horsey Horseless

Kellogg's cereal wasn't the only product to emanate from Battle Creek, Michigan. The Horsey Horseless also came from there, although it's unknown whether this vehicle was ever actually built. Still, it was a solution to a common problem in the early days of motoring, when automobiles were still uncommon and scared horses. Uriah Smith thought that sticking a horse head on the front of a horseless carriage would prevent horses from getting upset upon seeing one.

 

"It would have all the appearance of a horse and carriage and hence raise no fears in any skittish animal," he wrote. "Before he could discover his error and see that he had been fooled, the strange carriage would be passed, and then it would be too late to grow frantic and fractious."

 

He also recommended making the horse head hollow so it could also serve as a fuel tank.

 

 

It also made one hell of a hood ornament.

1902 Stanley Steamer

When the car was first invented, it was powered by gasoline. But gasoline-powered cars were noisy and smelly, and they had to be hand-cranked to be started, which frequently caused injuries or even death. Then there were electric cars, which had limited range due to their lead acid batteries. Steam was familiar, having powered American industry for the better part of the 19th century.

 

Cars built with steam power proved popular, but they were complex, as they had three tanks. One contained water for the boiler, another held kerosene or home heating oil to heat the water, and a third usually held gasoline to keep the pilot light burning. Finally, an acetylene torch was needed to light the pilot light.

 

And you had to wait for the water to boil and create steam before you could drive anywhere. Also, these were not intuitive machines, as they had copper tubes and pipes, boilers, condensers, valves, and gauges. And if they backfired, they could seriously scald the driver. Finally, the Stanley Steamer's water tank had to be refilled every 30–50 miles (48–80 km), but the company felt drivers could refill their water tanks at any brook, pond, or horse trough.

 

Ultimately, it was the electric starter that doomed steam cars. First seen on the 1912 Cadillac Model 30, it allowed drivers to take off without waiting anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes to get started. It was also far cheaper to run.

 

But the company survived until 1927. The last steam car was built in 1931.

1907 Carter Two-Engine

When the engine in the car that Howard O. Carter was driving developed mechanical problems many miles from home, Carter did what anybody in his situation would do in the early days of the automobile: He built his own car, albeit with a spare four-cylinder engine.

 

Dubbed the Carter Two Engine, it also had two radiators, two ignitions, and two exhaust systems. The engines were mounted side-by-side and were connected, according to a contemporary account in the Smithsonian Magazine, "through cone clutches in the flywheels and by Morse silent chains, to a single three-speed transmission placed in the center of the car."

 

Once started, one four-cylinder engine was used until the driver needed more power. The driver then engaged the second engine's clutch, which started the second powerplant, thereby doubling the vehicle's horsepower to 40 ponies, allowing the car to power onward without having to downshift.

 

But the second engine wasn't merely there to add power; it was also an insurance policy in case the first engine broke down.

 

The car was priced at $2,250, or $70,185 adjusted for inflation, and Carter trumpeted the vehicle's introduction as "the birth of an epoch of transportation unparalleled in the history of the world." Few customers agreed. Within a year, the company's factory in Hyattsville, Maryland, was building a car called the Washington, which proved somewhat more successful. It lasted until 1912, albeit with one engine rather than two.

1907 Cartercar

Byron Carter—no relation to Howard—developed the friction drive transmission, an early rendition of what's known today as the continuously variable transmission, or CVT.

 

 

A friction drive transmission consists of a giant disc at the end of the driveshaft. A second disc is applied at a right angle to the first disc, which transfers power to the axle by converting longitudinal rotation to lateral. Moving the second disc in or out from the center alters the transmission's ratio while varying the pressure of one disc against another allows slip, similar to a clutch. For those who had never driven a car before, it proved far easier to master than a manual transmission.

 

But the second disc's slip increased with load, while the friction material on its surface wasn't durable and had to be replaced. And the transmission's performance deteriorated if mud or some kind of liquid ended up coating its surface. Despite its limitations, it was a transmission used by other automakers, including Brush, Metz, and Lambert.

 

When Byron Carter died unexpectedly at the age of 44 in 1909, William Crapo Durant, CEO of General Motors, bought the company. But by 1915, GM ended production due to slow sales as the Ford Model T, with its easy-to-use planetary transmission, displaced friction drive as the easy-to-use transmission of choice.

 

"How was anyone to know that Cartercar wasn't the thing?" Durant later lamented.

1911 Reeves Octoauto

In an era when Americans were still as dependent on horses for transportation, roads were filled with horse excrement. Consider New York City, where horses produced 2.5 million pounds (1.1 million kg) of manure and 60,000 gallons (227,000 L) of urine every day. Even worse, except for in major cities, most roads were unpaved and filled with ruts and carriage tracks. Given the primitive suspension of early automobiles and the early paths they traversed, automakers were always looking for a smoother ride.

 

Enter Milton Reeves, a minor on-and-off manufacturer of automobiles over the years, who had invented and patented the automotive muffler in 1897.

 

When it came to building cars, Reeves thought he had the solution to the uncomfortable ride typically experienced by early motorists. Reeves welded two additional axles to a 1910 Overland, endowing it with eight wheels. Reeves believed that the added wheels would bestow his 1911 Reeves Octoauto with a better ride. Then again, the car's size might have had something to do with it, as it had a 180-inch wheelbase and 248-inch overall length.

 

Displaying the ginormous car at the inaugural Indianapolis 500 elicited snickers but no orders. Of course, the lack of interest could have been due to its $3,200 price—nearly $100,000, adjusted for inflation.

 

Reeves returned the following year with the six-wheeled, $5,000 Sextauto using a Stutz chassis, but again, it found no buyers.

1938 Citroën Berline 11 Gazogene

If you think pollution is bad now, imagine if cars were fueled by coal. That's actually not so hard to imagine, as the French did build them during World War II when gasoline was expensive, if it could even be found.

 

So cars were modified in France to run on coal gas.

 

Coal was placed in one of the two tanks on the front fenders and burnt. The resulting methane gas was condensed, filtered, and supplied to a unique carburetor. The driving distance was a mere 30 miles, with a top speed of 45 mph. Much like with a steam car, one had to wait 30 minutes from ignition before the car could be started. Nevertheless, an estimated 65,000 of these alternative fuel systems were sold during the war by various companies.

 

 

Of course, odd ideas never go out of fashion, and in 1981, General Motors experimented with a coal-powered turbine engine fueled by coal powder ground to three microns. One advantage was that 95 percent of the coal's energy was used by the engine, as opposed to 55 percent for gasoline. GM's experimental car had a tank under the hood to hold the powdered coal, which was hit by compressed air to move the powder into the turbine combustion chamber, where it was ignited. But being coal, it caused air pollution due to its higher levels of sulfur and other impurities, so it was never put into production.

1957 Waterman Aerobile

An airplane that doubles as a legal road-worthy automobile has long grabbed the imaginations of inventors, one of whom was Waldo Waterman. His design for the 1934 Waterman Arrowplane was one of two designs acknowledged in a Bureau of Air Commerce aircraft competition for a light, easy-to-fly aircraft. But it would take further development for Waterman to reach a design that worked reliably. That arrived in 1957 as the Aerobile, a two-person, high-wing plane with a transmission that drove the rear wheels while on the ground and the propeller when in the air.

 

Before hitting the road, the single-piece wing had to be removed. In an effort to help the vehicle maintain the appearance of a car, it was built with common Studebaker, Ford, Austin, and Willys parts (which also kept the costs down). It was given experimental FAA certification in 1957, but a market never developed.

 

Today, it resides in the Smithsonian.

 

Of course, the idea of a plane you could drive down the highway has long been a dream of many, including Glenn Curtiss, whose 1917 Curtiss Autoplane is considered the first roadable aircraft, even though it never achieved a full flight. Then there was William Stout's 1931 Skycar, which promised to offer an affordable airplane to the American consumer. But the Great Depression ensured it would never be marketed. There's also the 1950 Airphibian, which never reached the market due to financial difficulties and design compromises.

 

But the dream remains alive, as a number of companies are planning to introduce flying automobiles sometime in the near future, including the Pal V Liberty, Samson Switchblade, Aska A5, and the Klein Vision AirCar.

1961 Amphicar

One of the world's only amphibious cars, the Amphicar was the creation of German engineer Hans Trippel, who had long had a thing for amphibious cars, having designed the 1934 SG6, and later the 1939 Schwimmwagen, for Adolf Hitler.

 

After World War II, Trippel looked to develop his amphibious cars into something appropriate for the consumer market. For his new car's engine, he chose one from the Triumph Herald, a lightweight, tough 39 hp (29 kW) 1.1 L engine. Debuting as the 1961 Amphicar 770 and selling for 10,000 Deutsche Marks, or $2,479, it wasn't exactly a hit. After all, how many people needed a car that could do double duty as a boat?

 

Of course, its tailfins were already dated, and its sloping front underside was awkward, while its generous ground clearance lent it an ungainly look. Then there was its performance, which was decidedly leisurely on land, taking the best part of 43 seconds to reach 60 mph (98 km/h). It was no quicker on the water, with a top speed of 7 knots.

 

Worst of all, it wasn't watertight. In fact, whether it sank or swam depended on the ability of the Amphicar's bilge pump to expel the water that leaked into the car.

 

Trippel had planned to build 20,000 Amphicars annually. By 1968, when production ended, the total numbered 3,878, with 90 percent sold in America.

1981 Cadillac Fleetwood V-8-6-4

It seemed like a great idea, one dreamt up during the second OPEC oil embargo in 1979.

 

Cadillac designers were downsizing the Fleetwood's V-8 engine to 6.0 L from 7.0 L, but it wasn't fuel-efficient enough. Then inspiration struck. During certain instances, such as cruising on the Interstate using cruise control, the Fleetwood didn't require all eight cylinders to sustain speed. So why not shut down the ones that aren't needed?

 

The new engine, dubbed the L62, was developed with automotive supplier Eaton Corporation. The system informed the Computer Command Module whether to deactivate two or four cylinders by disengaging the appropriate rocker arms and closing the intake and exhaust valves on two or four cylinders, depending on engine speed, EGR position, intake manifold air pressure, coolant temperature, exhaust, and air pump operation. By reducing the engine's power and fuel consumption to that of a 4.5 L V6 or a 3.0 L V4, fuel economy improved by as much as 30 percent.

 

But the reality proved to be much different from the theory as microprocessors activated, deactivated, and reactivated cylinders as driving conditions rapidly changed, causing the car to hesitate, buck, and stall. GM issued 13 updates, but none worked. So dealers disabled the system on customer cars, leaving them permanently in V8 mode. GM pulled the L62 engine after a single year.

 

This is one idea that didn't fade away, though.

 

With far better technology at its disposal, GM reintroduced cylinder deactivation as Active Fuel Management on its 2005 mid-sized SUVs, a technology now used by automakers across the industry. At first, this feature would shut down an entire bank of a V8 engine, but more modern cylinder deactivation can control individual cylinders within an engine.