Wednesday 18th October 1933

R. Buckminster Fuller applied for a patent for his Dymaxion Car. The name Dymaxion was another Fuller invention: a combination of “dynamic,” “maximum,” and “ion”. It looked and drove like no vehicle anyone had ever seen. It was a three-wheeled, 20-foot-long, pod-shaped automobile that could carry 11 passengers and travel as fast as 120 miles per hour. It got 30 miles to the gallon, could U-turn in a distance equal to its length and could parallel park just by pivoting its wheels toward the curb and zipping sideways into its parking space. It was stylish, efficient and eccentric and it created a great deal of publicity. But within a month of the patent application, one of his prototype Dymaxions crashed, killing the driver causing most investors to withdraw their money from the project.