Friday, September 21, 2007

Closer Than We Think! Poor Man's Yacht (1958)

The July 20, 1958 Chicago Tribune ran this Closer Than We Think! strip. Not only will every family of the future have their own yacht, it will be powered by the family car!


The luxury of yachting may be within the reach of almost everyone in the world of tomorrow.

Mass production of low-cost plastic hulls will be made possible by the use of guns that spray the plastic, similar to the "Fiber-Resin Depositor" as conceived by the Rand Development Corporation.

The family car will be used for motive power. When the yachtsman of the future drives his auto into the cradle of his new marine creation the engine will be in place. The rear wheels will rest on a roller linked to the propeller. The driver will put the car in gear, step on the accelerator, and presto - he'll be yachting.

See also:
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Amphibian Monorail (Popular Science, 1934)
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7 comments:

  1. runnerfrogSeptember 22, 2007 at 1:48 AM

    In the past, at least the wackos thinked of the poor man; right now nobody does :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark PlusSeptember 23, 2007 at 11:31 AM

    Paleo-future thinking coincided with a social-democratic era in American politics and culture (from tne New Deal through the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency). For example, Buckminster Fuller talked about using something called "design science" to provide for the material needs of "100 percent of humanity." Who talks about doing that now? Tribalistic and Screw-you-I've-got-mine thinking has replaced the social idealism of the paleo-future.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 24, 2007 at 11:09 AM

    Yeah, that's efficient -- gasoline, combusted to mechanical energy, transferred through a transmission, transferred through rubber tires and rollers, transferred (presumably) through yet another transmission or gearing... all while adding 2000 to 4000 additional pounds that need to be floated and moved about with the boat!

    And what fun, to be "yachting" from the driver's seat of your car. Might as well just ramp up the soma and stay at home.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 26, 2007 at 5:53 PM

    The link doesn't seem to be working; I get the file name, not the image.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Julie PerrySeptember 28, 2007 at 2:47 AM

    The link to the photos is definitely not working. Could you repost so we can see the larger version in detail?

    Thanks,
    JP

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownSeptember 30, 2007 at 10:51 AM

    It's hard to see how this scheme could be made cheaper (especially in total-cost-of-ownership) than the price of an outboard motor. But maybe that's just me talking with 21st-century hindsight.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2008 at 3:55 PM

    Was everyone in the 60s a compulsive liar? I want my jet-pack darn-it!

    ReplyDelete

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