Dude, Where is my hover car ?


I have lived in interesting times, at least from the point of view of technological developments.  I grew up in the "wonder years", before color television and during the space race.  I am still is awe of the Apollo Spare Missions and old enough to know what they were! There were technological promises galore, we would all have computers, mobile phones, homes in the sky, holidays on the Moon, international travel by rocket and levitating cars....hover cars .  The braver would commute with jet packs, few dared to predict anti-gravity devices and it is still a prediction that is daring, to say the least. Some of us would also have personal nukes!

So, what did we get ? We got computers by the landfill load ! We got pocket personal communicators and now most of us live in pokey ,dispirited, sky appartments. But, Where Is My Hovercar ?


I like to browse the library at the Hargrave Engineering Library at Monash University. The basement houses a large bound periodical collection. In this rich assortment  I found bound copies of Jane's Defence Weekly from 1959.  There were some interesting advertisements from defence contract suppliers that suggested that a sort of hover car did in fact exist. I cannot imagine that they were very driveable or stable.

was there really a hover-car in 1959 ?	was there really a hover-car in 1959 ?	I think gyro copters were shown to be a bad idea, from 1959
	I think the missile on the right is on display outside the Melbourne Point Cook RAAF Base Air Museum. This advertisement is also from 1959. I recall seeing something similar.