Looks like the cycles are coming around more frequently, stand by for self destruction.
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A California-based company says it is developing a flying car based on a Ferrari.
Moller International says it will use a 599 GTB Ferrari as the basis of its Autovolantor flying supercar.
The Autovolantor’s designer, Bruce Calkins has told London’s Daily Telegraph the car’s driver will be able to take off and land vertically, hover above traffic, then accelerated to 240km/h in the air.
The car’s ground speed would be about 160km/h, he says. Cruising distance would be about 240km on the ground and 150km in the air.
The Autovolantor’s eight thrusters develop about 600kW – up from the 456kW produced by the current 599 GTB Fiorano’s V12 engine.
"Once in the air the vehicle manoeuvres like a helicopter, tilting nose down to move forward, rolling right or left for changes in direction,” (
..before it crashes in a ball of flame) Calkins told The Telegraph.
The designer said he’d chosen the Ferrari because of its aerodynamic shape. (
...and its red) He says it will fly about 1.5km off the ground. "While maximum altitude could be much higher, the energy to obtain altitudes above 5,000 feet would be significant so we expect it to stay below that height," he said.
The company tested the project’s viability using a scale model of the Ferrari in a wind tunnel.
"At first we were very sceptical that we could adapt a ground-vehicle with our technologies and make it work,” Calkins said. "But the model allowed us to quickly verify that it could in fact be done."
The flying Ferrari’s ability to “quick hop out of traffic” would make the project more attractive to backers (
wankers)willing to fund the project, he said.
A production Autovolantor would cost about A$1.2million in Europe, he said.
Moller International isn’t new to flying car projects. The brainchild of inventor, Dr Paul Moller, the flying car concept has been around in one form or another since the early 1980s, when Dr Moller set up his company to “design, develop, manufacture and market personal vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOL)”.
Moller has built prototypes of what he calls flying cars but, until now, they’re looked more like, well, aeroplanes than cars.
The pundits will tell you the concept is well and truly pie in the sky and the project will need to hurdle a legal minefield of regulations relating to both road and air traffic before it even gets off the ground. And there’s no official word from Ferrari about its thoughts on the project.
But anyone old enough to remember TV’s The Jetsons will tell you they’ve been waiting patiently since the 1960s to park a flying car in their garage.