Whenever you talk to anybody about the future it seems they always mention “wheres my flying car?”. What things in our culture (books, movies etc…) give us this idea? The only one that comes to mind is the Jetsons or maybe some old Popular Science magazine.
back to the future
Aside from Popular Science cover stories, I’m pretty sure that they were a common feature of ‘Futurama’ type exhibitions at world’s fairs of the period.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Edit - and the Jetsons
I’m just sayin’…
Even Captain Sisko wants his.
Flying cars have been a concept since the early days of aviation:
Metropolis (1927) had little personal planes flying among the skyscrapers.
1919 autoplane concept by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss
1951 personal helicopter
1935 giro car
More recently:
Blade Runner (1982)
The Fifth Element (1997)
I think I associated it with Dick Tracy and his wrist watch phone.
Stranger in a Strange Land had flying cars…not sure when it was written.
Isn’t that pretty much a stable of science fiction? I even recall seeing a very old sci fi, where they had flying cars, but not stoplights. So there would be policemen guiding traffic up in the air.
The personal airship showed up in 19th Century science fiction. The flying car is just an adaptation of that. If you want to pick out the source of the theme, it’s probably Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon.
I just have to add a few Jetson’s references as mentioned above, a few that still make be chuckle.
When they went to look for a new car the salesman tries to push the Supersonic Suburbanite with radar curb feelers on them. What a cool name for a flying car.
Also, the car with the extra bubble high up on the tail for the bitching mother in law the driver can eject when the gripping becomes too much, “watch that rocket on the left, sonny.”
The moller (sp?) skycar has been just ready for production for the last 25 years. What’s the hold up?