10 Awesome Car Technologies That Never Took Off

1. Gullwing doors

Gullwing doors have been around for decades, occasionally hinged on the side of luxury supercars, but more often than not the preserve of concept cars. That’s the case with the Nissan NX-21 above, which was revealed in 1983. The Japanese manufacturer reckoned this car was a symbol of what cars would be like in the 21st Century, but it wasn’t.

As much as car makers keep trying to make gullwing doors happen, they’re just not catching on, largely due to the fact that they have a lot of drawbacks, such as safety in a rollover crash or exiting from a tight space. The Tesla Model X’s falcon doors go some way to addressing that, but given the fact their complexity contributed to the car’s lengthy delay in reaching market, we doubt other manufacturers will be falling over themselves to fit them to their cars.

2. Turbine engines

It wasn’t just the NX21’s doors that saw wrongly into the future; it was also powered by a 99bhp gas turbine engine in the rear. The benefits are obvious, since the turbine could run on kerosine, light oil and alcohol, had fewer moving parts and less vibration than most conventional engines at the time.

Unfortunately it never caught on. Chrysler was at the forefront of turbine car engine technology research in the 50s and 60s, until the government pulled the plug on the program after it gave the manufacturer money to survive. The issues it was trying to overcome at the time included high fuel usage (because the turbines spin at such high RPMs), the fact they were expensive to make, and that throttle response was slow, as you had to wait for the turbine to spin up before noticing any change in momentum.

With Chrysler no longer working to overcome these drawbacks, and no other manufacturers taking turbine engines seriously, the technology remained the reserve of science fiction futures.

There’s an old, grainy video that’s been doing the rounds for years that shows off Bose’s incredible suspension technology, which keeps the car level no matter what the road surface might be doing. We all wondered why it never went mainstream, so it was great to finally get closure earlier this year as Bose revealed that it was too complex and too expensive for the mainstream market.

4. Small, electric, inner-city transport

This is epitomised by 1985’s Sinclair C5, pictured above. The idea was to create a small, electric alternative to driving a car, an idea that is arguably more relevant today than ever before, but one which has never really caught on.

The problem with the C5 was that it was barely any more useful than a bicycle, and at £399 (about £845 in today’s money), a lot more expensive. It was just as unsafe as a bicycle, and offered no extra weather-proofing. It also had terrible range and a fast-draining battery.

All but the range problem could still be levied at the Renault Twizy, probably the best example of such a vehicle today. Even though the Twizy is brilliant fun and I would love to own one, it’s difficult to justify when you consider they cost nearly £7000 new. You could easily buy a ‘proper’ city car - that has undergone actual crash testing - for less on the used market.

If this sort of thing is ever going to take off, the price needs to come down drastically.

5. Rocket brakes

Rockets. For brakes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why this one didn’t catch on, but they featured in popular magazine Modern Mechanix in 1946 with a lot of intrigue. The idea was for it to only be used in emergency situations, with early tests finding it offered up to 2g of stopping force.

The downsides? In the event of a fire, “the propellant [would burn] with about the same effect as several gallons of gasoline”, which isn’t ideal. Also, anyone standing close to the car when the rockets went off might find themselves a bit crispy. Unsurprisingly, disc brakes were considered a little less risky…

6. Steam engines

When you think of steam engines, you probably think of trains, but you might be surprised to learn that in the early days of the automobile, steam and fossil fuel-powered engines were neck and neck to become the norm.

The steam car has its roots in 1670s China, where a Flemish missionary by the name of Father Ferdinand Verbiest managed to get a steam-powered toy car to run under its own power. About 100 years later, a man named Nicholas Cugnot had created a three-wheeled vehicle powered by an external steam engine, and it was big enough to carry people.

The main issues with steam engines were the fact they were big, heavy, and slow. As a last hurrah for the steam engine, a ballsy driver by the name of Fred Marriott took a Stanley Steamer to 127mph in 1906, which is still the land speed record for a steam-powered vehicle. Despite this impressive feat, ICE engines were smaller and easier to maintain, so the steam thing never really caught on once cars entered mass production.

7. Flying cars

One of science’s biggest betrayals is not making flying cars a reality. We’ve been teased with the idea of being able to cruise the skies in our automobiles for decades; flying cars have featured in tonnes of science fiction stories since The Jetsons in the 60s and Star Wars in the 70s, and have been central to our vision of the future.

The first attempt at something like a flying car came in 1926, when Henry Ford attempted to build a small, single-seat aeroplane, however he abandoned the idea a couple of years later when a pilot died during a test flight. In 1940, he said “Mark my word: a combination airplane and motorcar is coming. You may smile, but it will come.” He’s not technically wrong, but we’re still waiting.

The closest we’ve come so far is the AeroMobil 3.0, which can be driven like a car on the road, but can easily spread its wings and fly. Still, it doesn’t exactly blend in with normal traffic.

A flying car future could still be a thing, as NASA set up the Personal Air Vehicle Sector Project in 2003. For a vehicle to be considered a legitimate ‘personal air vehicle’, it must meet a number of criteria, including the fact it must be easy enough to drive that anyone with a driving licence could do it.

8. The Tucker Safety Windshield

The Tucker 48 had a rather unique safety feature: A detachable windscreen. Concerned that when car passengers are launched through the windscreen in a crash, broken glass can cause severe injury, Tucker fitted a windscreen that was shatterproof and would pop out when hit. Tucker: Making being thrown through a windscreen face first onto tarmac safer since 1948.

That sounds a lot more practical than, say, seat belts, right?

9. The rotary engine

We’re all huge fans of the rotary engine, particularly in Mazda’s RX sports cars. Unfortunately, tightening emissions regulations saw the Japanese manufacturer forced to ditch its Wankel-designed engines, and with no other car makers pursuing the idea, rotaries died out after a relatively short life on the peripheries of the mainstream.

Fortunately, it seems Mazda hasn’t given up on the rotary just yet, as it unveiled the RX-Vision concept in October last year. Even if the RX7 does return, rotary and all, it’d still be safe to say that despite its awesome, free-revving nature, the rotary never took off.

10. Modular bodywork

In 1982, Italdesign revealed its unique Capsula concept car. It was essentially a chassis with wheels, engine, suspension, fuel tank, and a host of other essentials for driving. Where it gets interesting is that above that was a capsule cabin that could be swapped easily for different designs. The idea was that one chassis design could allow for easy conversion between normally opposite vehicles, for example you could have a van for weekday practicality, then swap that out for a low-slung sporty design at weekends.

Today we see modular chassis used by the likes of the VW Group, where Seat, Skoda, VW et al use essentially the same architecture, but the Capsula was more specific than that. One chassis served a wide variety of body styles that could be swapped out easily providing flexibility for the owner - we’re kind of sad this never became a thing.