If I understand correctly, the original Batmobile was in fact based on a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car. Kind of wild, as the first Batman TV series launched 11yrs later!
Sorry for the lack of info / pics, but Spectrum basically crippled my internet on Monday, and I’m still trying to figure what the hell’s going on.
In any case, here’s more pics of this memorable automobile:
https://www.google.com/search?q=1962+Ford+Seattle-ite+XXI&udm=2
This was a 3/8 scale mockup. The woman is forced perspective with the model much closer to the camera than it appears.
Here’s some details on the Tyrell P34, a formula 1 six-wheel racecar:
Imagine the turning radius on that thing.
Nebraska.
Auto designers should go back to making wild shit like this instead of SUVs so tall you can’t see Shaq walk in front of it.
This was closer to Lady Penelope’s car, FAB1.
Similar scale too it turns out.
A front dually?
I think front dual was a bit of a thing back then but mostly on something like buses, where you needed the weight capacity for the engine, and maybe for better traction.
Modern buses have used pusher engines for a long time, which I think is why we see dual rear axles on them.
Plus tire tech has changed so dramatically even since the 80’s that we no longer need more wheels to have sufficient traction for turning.
But this is a lot of supposition on my part. There’s probably quite a bit of “cool factor” in this show car.
I think front dual was a bit of a thing back then but mostly on something like buses, where you needed the weight capacity for the engine, and maybe for better traction.
So how does that work for turning? Is there some kind of linkage to compensate? Like in a pinzgauer?
I honestly don’t know, it would be interesting to see the different solutions each effort produced.
For a bus I don’t think anything special would be required, as the speeds are low you could just accept there will be tire scrubbing. I suspect turn radius is increased, but it’s not like buses turn great anyway (could also decrease turn radius because of increased traction).
I think the racing world experimented with multi-wheel front in the 60’s or 70’s, and that tells me it was about traction for steering (tire tech back then was awful compared to today). I’m sure suspension engineers worked to ensure turn angle between lead and second wheel were optimized (and each axle probably had unique camber and caster control curves).
Check out the 60’s bus in Magical Mystery Tour and how hard they turn that thing (skip to about the 2 minute mark). I think even a modern pusher would scrub a lot more and lean less than what that extra axle upfront enables (plus being front engine)…
The Tyrell F1 effort was killed because the private contractor to develop the small front tires for Goodyear was bought off by Ferrari claiming to have a similar car in development. Agnelli and Ferrari were infamous for this in the 70s.
A few years ago, Avon make bespoke tires for the car proving the concept was sound. But the rules to ban 6 wheels came in when the four small wheels were put on the back to increase airflow for down force.
Interesting.
I’m not following the “four small wheels on the back” - was that another multi-wheel effort in the 70’s?
My knowledge of F1 is nonexistent - I only remembered seeing those 6 wheelers at one point, but I really don’t know anything about them.
Well, guess another rabbit hole is in my future.
You would need to calculate the Ackerman ratios for both front axles.
All cars do this, but it’s more drastic looking n on shorter wheelbase vehicles like the Pinzgauer.
It must have a heavy engine.
I mean its got 4 fucking rocket nozzles in the back so maybe I guess.
For aerodynamics and more contact with the road in the race car (see the YouTube link in the thread). Road cars were just doing it as a reference to the race car
I wish I had known about this auction
https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/19465/lot/153/1977-panther-six-chassis-no-xp3100/
Sold for €41k. Remarkably low cost for an iconic one of two car
Reminds me of Lady Penelope’s pink Rolls Royce in Thunderbirds!
Would other people here classify this as Cassette Futurism? I feel like it’s too early.
That aside, I always found this to be a beautiful car and have used it for references when working on retrofuturistic projects.
How would you define cassette futurism?
Generally either an alternate timeline where technology was more advanced in the 70s and 80s, or technology plucked from the 80s placed in a different era. It has a more specific look, but that’s a longer conversation to get into. The car you posted I used in a piece that was pulling from Raygun Gothic/Atom Punk. (More like Fallout)
Interesting, thanks. I certainly do agree that the ‘CF’ aesthetic best stems from actual cassettes and their relative era, as then riffed upon.
I also agree that this particular post of mine isn’t absolutely ideal upon the CF aesthetic, but there’s so little content being posted here that I’d rather not worry about perfectionism in a semi-dead sublemmy. If that makes sense.
If you want a better example of my ideal CF posting-effort and deeper dive in to that particular subject, see my inaugural post here:
https://piefed.social/c/[email protected]/p/2030866/quickie-review-casio-s-eg-5-electric-guitar-1985-with-built-in-tape-player-recorder-spe
I have often wondered if there should have just been a general Retrofuturism community that would have housed multiple “punk” aesthetics. We’d have more frequent posts and interesting new finds.
Also that is quite an amazing guitar.
We’d have more frequent posts and interesting new finds.
Not to veer too cynical, but much of the Fediverse is a wasteland of communities started with great intentions, but insufficient follow-through. Unless it’s a highly-popular place that has the critical mass to ignite itself, most communities wind up needing to be supplied by their founder with quality material through the years. Only a few us seem to be that level of crazy. XD
That’s why I think cassette futurism is a bit too niche. If you had Steampunk, atompunk, diselpunk and cassette futurism lumped into one place, there would likely be more content running through it since it would have a larger bucket of content to pull from.
