HYBRID VEHICLES

Hokitika Guardian, 7 September 1932, Page 2

HYBRID VEHICLES

MONSTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

A PEEP INTO THE FUTURE.

Man has devised the train ancl the automobile to get over the ground, the steamship to sail the sea, tiie submarine to travel under water, and the aeroplane to whisk him off the ground and 'through the air like a bird. But he is', not content with these achievements ; lie is turning his hand to the invention ot hybrid vehicles that) will combine the functions of the aeroplane and the automobile, the automobile and the boat,- and the boat and the aeropline •

Up to the present time none of these, strange vehicles has been adopte a for general use, and none of them lias definitely proved its practical utility, but inventors continue to turn them out and experiment) with them and ‘the day may not be far off when the boat automobile will be seen on highways and drivers all over the civilised world. AMPHIBIOUS CAR, One of these hybrids is an amphibious automobile that has: an aeroplane propellor to drive it over the read and across the water. It is the invention of George McLaughlin, a Bangor, Maine, garage owner, who believes that sonic machines will be an general use before many years.

The big aeroplane propeller, driven by a 70 horse-power meter, can eencl the machine over a smooth highway at a speed of 50 miles an hour,' and at half that speed when the boat-auto quits land and takes to the water. Airtight pontoons beneath tha running board and extending up the sides of the car keep afloat. An odd-looking craft is now in j regular serv'oc on the Danube river in Austria. For want of a better name, it is called a “river zeppelin” because of the shape of its unorthodox hull. Tlii.s might be said to be a combination boat and aeroplaiiq, although it cannot leave the water and Ay- It is driven, however, by the same typo of propeller used on aeroplanes and airships, and can skim over rough water at the rate of <SO miles an hour.

Another strange sight is the land sail boat on the sand at Abu-Sueir, Egypt. These earthbound ships are, to .tell the truth, more for sport than for practical use, for they require firm sand, and are of no use.among the shifting dunes of the Sahara, Eighteen of these land yachts recently raced for prizes in Egypt, and the winner attained a speed of better than 45 miles an hour.

THE “HYDRO-CAR,” Then there is the peculiar vehicle that its inventor, a Scotsman named Leslie Lambert, calls, a “hydrocar.” The body of the car ia a compromise between the 'hullll of a motor-boat and the body of an automobile. When the machine is on land its motor drives the rear wheels, and when it goes to sea the power is connected to a shaft equipped with a standard-type motor boat propellor, .

A ! similar two-medium machine has been made by a French manufacturer of motor-cars. This machine is long past the experimental stage, and at least -a dozen such vehicles are in regular use on the European Continent. This, too, is a land boat, or if you prefer, a sea-going auto. On the road it can travel in excess of 50 miles an hour, and, in itsi initial test, it travelled faster than 26 miles an hour on the water.

The first attempt to build a machine that can fly in the air l as well as roll along the ground is called the aeromobile. On the ground the wings ae folded back so that the machine is above the width of a standard make automobile, but when the operator feds like soaring into the air, the wings are extended, fixed firmly in place, and an aeroplane propeller is attached to the motor.

FORERUNNERS OF CAR. People who are moved to amused laughted at such strange-looking machines should remember that the firs'b automobiles, which were the forerunners of the modern motor-car, are now funny-looking relics to be seen only in museums. Tile heawier-than-air machine in which the Wright brothers flew over the windswept sands of Kitty Hawk has already been relegated to the limbo of antiques, and is a flimsy impractical-looking contraption beside an up-to-date aeroplane. , The huge DO-X, which recently flewi from Europe to America, is a combination vehicle—a compromise between a sea-going vessel and an aeroplane. It ie really a boat with wings, or, if you prefer, a monster aeroplane with its fuselage buil'fc in ijlie form of a boat.

Many serious-minded inventors have predicted that the day will come when the automobie and aeroplane will be combined in a safe and efficient vehicle which can be converted from one form to the other in a few seconds, and which will behave as well in the air as on the road. l'fc is rumoured that a German inventor, working in secrecy, soon will test a machine which he believe® will travel on land, in the water, and in the air. In other word®, it is a hybrid vehicle with pneumatic-tyred wheels, a body something like the cabin of an amphibian aeroplane, and folding wings to support it in the air.