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N0KFQ > TODAY 12.07.14 15:58l 61 Lines 2872 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jul 12
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Sent: 140712/1455Z 26022@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.60
Jul 12, 1933:
First Dymaxion car produced
The first three-wheeled, multi-directional Dymaxion car--designed
by the architect, engineer and philosopher Buckminster Fuller--is
manufactured in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on this day in 1933.
Born in Massachusetts in 1895, Fuller set out to live his life as
(in his own words) "an experiment to find what a single
individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting
all humanity." After making up the world "Dymaxion" as a
combination of the words "dynamic," "maximum" and "ion," he took
the word as his own personal brand. Among his groundbreaking
creations were the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion house, which
was made of lightweight aluminum and could be shipped by air and
assembled on site.
In 1927, Fuller first sketched the Dymaxion car under the name
"4D transport." Part aircraft, part automobile, it had wings that
inflated. Five years later, Fuller asked his friend, the sculptor
Isamu Noguchi, to make more sketches of the car. The result was
an elongated teardrop design, with a rear third wheel that lifted
off the ground and a tail fin. Fuller set up production of the
Dymaxion car in a former Locomobile factory in Bridgeport in
March 1933. The first model rolled out of the Bridgeport factory
on July 12, 1933--Fuller's 38th birthday. It had a steel chassis
(or frame) and a body made of ash wood, covered with an aluminum
skin and topped with a painted canvas roof. It was designed to be
able to reach a speed of 120 miles per hour and average 28 miles
per gallon of gasoline.
Sold to Gulf Oil, the Dymaxion car went on display at the Century
of Progress exposition in Chicago. That October, however, the
professional driver Francis Turner was killed after the Dymaxion
car turned over during a demonstration. An investigation cleared
Dymaxion of responsibility, but investors became scarce, despite
the enthusiasm of the press and of celebrities such as the
novelist H.G. Wells and the painter Diego Rivera.
Along with the Nazi-built KdF-wagen (the forerunner of the
Volkswagen Beetle), the Dymaxion was one of several futuristic,
rear-engined cars developed during the 1930s. Though it was never
mass-produced, the Dymaxion helped lead to public acceptance of
new streamlined passenger cars, such as the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr.
In 2008, the only surviving Dymaxion was featured in an exhibit
dedicated to Fuller's work at the Whitney Museum of American Art
in New York City. An article published in The New York Times
about the exhibit recalled Fuller's own impressions of the
Dymaxion: "I knew everyone would call it a car," he told the
literary critic Hugh Kenner in the 1960s; instead, it was
actually "the land-taxiing phase of a wingless, twin orientable
jet stilts flying device."
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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