Although the LEVICAR program was dropped for economic reasons, it was technically successful.EHang markets its “autonomous aerial vehicles” as pilotless air taxis, good for ferrying high-flying executives to and from airports, or even as emergency service vehicles, for rescuing people trapped in floods or on other hard-to-reach terrain. The LEVICAR only required a blower in the back to propel it, and a working model was actually built. For example, LEVICAR, a vehicle levitated by magnets, was developed for high-speed transportation systems. ^ 'Ford Scientific Research Laboratory Reaches 50 Year Milestone'.^ 'Cars That Fly' Archived at the Wayback Machine, Modern Mechanix, October 1958, pp.^ 'April Artifact of the Month: Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car'.^ 'This Unbelievable 1959 Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air-Car'.'Luke Skywalker, your landspeeder is ready'. '1959 Curtiss-Wright Air Car 2500 – Like Riding on a Cloud…'. NYR: New York Race (contains hovercars from The Fifth Element).ReVOLUTION (2002 video game)|ReVOLUTION.Quarantine II: Road Warrior (1995 video game).Immortal (2004 film) (unique type of hovercar, which is powered by overhead wires).The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.Star Wars saga (as grav-cars, airflow cars, hover cars, trundle cars, hauler cars and landspeeders).Star Trek saga (skimmers and desert fliers the latter being a Vulcan hovercar).In popular culture In science fiction films and television While technically a success, the whole project was dropped due to financial constraints. The Levicar was very light and when raised off its guide rail by the magnetic it only required a blower in the back to propel it. The car was designed to be levitated by magnets, and was intended to be developed for high-speed transportation systems. It was a one-person, small in a modern sense, car propelled by maglev. In August 1961, Popular Science reported on the Aeromobile 35B, an air-cushion vehicle (ACV) that was invented by William Bertelsen and was envisioned to revolutionise the transportation system, with personal hovering self-driving cars that could speed up to 2,400 km/h (1,500 mph).Įfforts to build MagLev hover cars įord also displayed a concept car, LEVICAR.

In 1959, Ford displayed a hovercraft concept car, the Ford Levacar Mach I. Kucher, Ford's vice president in charge of Engineering and Research noting 'We look upon Glide-air as a new form of high-speed land transportation, probably in the field of rail surface travel, for fast trips of distances of up to about 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi)'. An article in Modern Mechanix quoted Andrew A. In April 1958, Ford engineers demonstrated the Glide-air, a one-metre (three-foot) model of a wheelless vehicle that speeds on a thin film of air only 76.2 μm ( 3⁄ 1000 of an inch) above its table top roadbed. The closest devices are the hovercraft, which elevates itself above a water or level hard surface using a cushion of air retained by a flexible skirt, and the hovertrain, which is a type of high-speed train that replaces conventional steel wheels with hovercraft lift pads, and the conventional railway bed with a paved road-like surface, known as the 'track' or 'guideway'.Ĭurtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car, late 1950s The capability of hovering above the ground eliminates the need for tires, and unlike an air-cushion vehicle, it does not produce a dust cloud. Other works feature vehicles that hover by having magnetic plates lined along roads, operating in a similar principle to Maglev. In science fiction, it is capable of elevating itself some distance from the ground through some repulsion technology, presumably exploiting some short range anti-gravity principle so as to eliminate most friction forces which act against conventional vehicles. The concept usually appears in science fiction. A hover car is a personal vehicle that flies at a constant altitude of up to few meters (some feet) above the ground and used for personal transportation in the same way a modern automobile is employed.

First hover car