Could it be? Could Red Baron Auctions have finally realized that the Tornado, my automotive arch-nemesis, is not, nor has it ever been, a concept car? The auction house has finally backed off that assertion in its description of the Tornado for the Red Baron auction this weekend in Atlanta, Georgia.
It’s creator was no doubt influenced by the futuristic car era, which saw George Barris’ Batmobile and the Lincoln Futuras.
Good. Now somebody needs to buy it and stick it in a warehouse where it will never inflict pain upon the eyes of human beings ever again. And when the uprising of the machines has long eradicated human eyes from this planet, robot archaeologists will unearth it and self-destruct because their neural networks cannot comprehend that this was their ancestor.
If I’m feeling particularly sci-fi today, it’s likely because of another oddball going through Red Baron this weekend, the 1960 Evinrude Heli-Bout, a concept boat designed by Brooks Stevens.
Stevens had a six-year relationship with Evinrude, for which he produced seven “shriekers,” boats built to attract attention to Evinrude at the National Boat Show. As Glenn Adamson wrote in “Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World,” the inspiration for the Heli-Bout, the sixth of the seven shriekers, came from overhearing an attendee at the year’s prior boat show, saying the only way Evinrude would be able to top that year’s boat would be to make the next one fly. So Stevens designed a way for the 75hp Starflite outboard motor to turn the rotors via flexible driveshafts and reduction gears.
None of this engineering was ever put to the test; the prototype that was built for the boat shows was not light enough to achieve liftoff, and its rotors were only for display purposes. But the basic idea, Stevens insisted, was both aerodynamically sound and eminently practical: “You can take off from your swimming pool, patio or front lawn. In a matter of an hour or two, you can set down on your favorite stream and enjoy a pleasant weekend… No more long hours of fighting traffic or looking for a place to put your boat in the water. How can you beat that?”
Just imagine a whole fleet of these descending on your favorite stream. Wouldn’t be your favorite stream anymore, I bet.
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