• Ever since humans came down out the trees, we’ve been creating ways to get from A to
B as easily and comfortably as possible.
But are all vehicles made to be useful?
And have we missed a great opportunity because something just looked too crazy?
Here’s the top 15 most insane vehicles ever.
15 - Ryno • Riding a unicycle makes you look like
a circus performer or a hipster but the Ryno makes one wheel very sexy.
• This one wheeled electric motorcycle will do ten miles an hour, with about an hour’s
battery life.
It’s controlled like a Segway, where you lean forward to accelerate and backwards to
break.
• Creator Chris Hoffman was actually challenged to make it by his daughter, who’d seen one
in a video game.
14 – Topsy Turvy Bus • Ben & Jerry's cofounder, Ben Cohen, want
to make a prop to comment on the US Government’s priorities; which seemed to him to be completely
upside down.
• He commissioned art car maker Tom Kennedy to make the a Topsy Turvy bus, with one bus
welded upside down, on top of the other.
• It’s now in the hands of Hazon, an environmental organisation who use it to run educational
programs for kids.
13 - EleMMent Palazzo • For many people, the phrase “mobile
home” conjures up trailer parks and depressing camping holidays.
• But the EleMMent Palazzo is far nicer than your apartment, and it can drive to whatever
neighbourhood it wants.
• It costs $3 million and it comes with 3 whole floors.
Two are inside but the top can convert into a sky lounge at the touch of a button.
Just don’t use it while on the move; your mojito will go everywhere.
12 – Peel P50 • First appearing in 1962, the Peel P50
is the smallest production car ever made.
It was a metre wide, a metre high and just 1.34 metres long.
It weighed about as much as a teenage boy.
• A few years later, they made a 2-seater version called the Trident which featured
a futuristic bubble dome.
• Production stopped in the 60s but a new business is now making them to order, so you
can bash your head in one for just $16,000
11 – Pedal Ferrari • Johannes Langeder always wanted a fancy
sportscar but he couldn’t get the money together.
Instead, he decided to build one himself.
• The Austrian artist constructed a surprisingly realistic Ferrari frame round a pair of bicycles,
using plastic tubing and packaging tape to put it all together.
• He named his creation the Fahradi, after the german “Fahrrad”, meaning bicycle.
10 - Reid RFS-1 • You’ve probably seen a seaplane before.
But what about if you didn’t have to stop at the ocean’s surface and could dive down
beneath the waves?
• Well, the Reid RFS-1 managed to achieve this weird feat…
well, kind of.
You’d have to land on the water first and then go about removing the propeller and covering
the engine.
• It only managed to fly about 25 metres but this was just built by one guy with a
very limited budget.
• But the idea didn’t sink entirely.
In 2008, the US defence department asked for bids to make a submersible aircraft.
9 – Backwards Brain Bike • This may look like a normal bike but it
has one simple difference; when you turn the handlebars left, the wheel turns right.
• The bike was created by the team at the Youtube channel, Smarter Every Day.
• The amazing thing is that this one simple change makes the bike almost impossible to
ride.
• Presenter, Dustin, practised for 5 minutes, every day, and it took him 8 months to be
able to use it.
8 - Nemeth Parasol • Nemuth Parasol was designed to take-off
and land within a very small space.
• It had a circular wing, which made it very easy to control, it’s said most people
could learn the skill in just half an hour.
• The name comes because the wing shape meant it would float down to earth like a
parachute, even if the engines cut out.
They proved this in testing.
• The high drag really limited the speed though so it never got beyond the prototype
stage.
7 - The Cabrio • Cable cars can be a pretty intense experience
for vertigo sufferers but at least there’s always a good thick layer of metal and glass
between you and the drop to your death.
• But the Cabrio can go convertible so you climb the mountains-side exposed to the open
air.
• It takes you almost 2 kilometres up the Swiss Alps and sits 60 people across two floors.
• And if you try and cower below the open deck, well, the bottom floor’s made of glass
so… good luck with that.
6 – Hot Tub Car • Phil Weicker and Duncan Forster came up
with the answer to a question that not many people were asking; can you take your hot
tub for a spin?
• They converted a 969 Cadillac Coupe DeVille into a hot tub on the move, giving it a watertight
steering system and recycling some of the engine heat to warm the water
• Just don’t ask where they keep their license and registration.
5 - McDonnell XF-85 Goblin • If you’ve ever watched Star Wars, you’ll
be familiar with the idea of large craft having a fleet of small fighter to protect it.
• Well, the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin was designed at the end of WW2 as a so called “parasite
fighter”, which would be kept inside a B36 bomber and then released through the bomb
bay doors if enemy fighters were spotted.
• It never saw combat since the air force worked out a way to refuel their regular fighters
while flying.
They also never managed to find a good system to recover the Goblin in the air.
4 – Model Kit boat • Swedish artist Michael Johansson has created
a supersized toy with his boat named “Toys-R-Us” • All of the necessary parts of a regular
boat have been laid out around it and attached together as if it were a life-sized model.
It’s all covered in a matching coat of plastic paint to complete the look.
• He’s also done the same procedure with a bike.
3 - M-497 ‘Black Beetle’ • For most trainspotters, and we mean the
actual ones, not the Scottish heroin ones, the excitement is in finding specific model
numbers and configurations.
• But almost everyone would be thrilled to come across the M-497 ‘Black Beetle’
• In the 60s, the train companies knew they had lost the long-distance market to aircraft.
So, to make the short and medium journeys faster, they decided to adopt the same jet
engines, strapped to the top of the train.
• The Black Beetle was never used in public but it still holds the American train speed
record of 295.88 km/h 2 - Honda’s self-balancing motorbike
• Self-driving cars are no longer a future concept, they’ll be appearing on the roads
in increasing numbers soon.
But the same may also be true of the self-driving motorbike.
• Honda’s new bike self-balance, was designed to keep riders safe at low speeds, when the
bike is less stable and likely to topple.
• Rather than using gyroscopes, a computer takes control of the wheels to automatically
balance the weight.
1 - Chrysler Turbine • Chrysler had been looking into the turbine
engine since WW2.
The aim was to replace piston engines with this much simple, spinning blade system.
• There were a lot of benefits; it had far fewer moving parts, it would start easily
in cold weather, last longer, and it could run on almost any fuel.
• So, when the Chrysler Turbine appeared in 1964, this fuel claim was tested in what
sounds like a series of national stereotypes; In France, they filled it with Chanel No5,
and in Mexico, the president drove it around filled with tequila.
• The car was filled, not the president, we believe.