Tesla Just Unveiled Its Flying Car. History Says It Might Not Work Out.

On December 17, 1903, the Wright Brothers made history with the first powered flight, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. A little under 123 years later, and a little under 1,500 miles away, a SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas livestreamed a demo of Tesla’s latest Roadster model.

This particular vehicle is able to go from zero to 60 mph in less than a second, but its distinguishing feature is something far more vertical.

As company founder Elon Musk said to an eager, whooping crowd, “We need an audience to prove that it’s not AI or SI.”

“This is the culmination of incredible work by Tesla and SpaceX engineers,” Musk continued, “working closely together to make something that you haven’t seen in any movie.”

Which is true, provided you’ve never seen Blade Runner. Or Back to the Future Part II. Or The Fifth Element. Or The Jetsons Movie. Or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Or Total Recall. Or The Absent-Minded Professor. Or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Or the ninth Fast & Furious movie.

You get where this is going. They made a flying car.

The vehicle launched itself up a ramp until it was in the air, upside down. Then, as it appeared to fall, it instead righted itself in mid-air, and gently glided down to the ground on gusts of forced air like one of the landing vessels in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was, undeniably, an impressive and elegant display.

Later, this new Roadster (operating without a driver “to make sure we don’t kill anyone,” as Musk noted) did another demonstration, this time hurtling through the air in a daredevil jump over a row of Teslas, showing the vehicle’s future utility—if in the future, Bo and Luke Robo-Duke need to jump a ravine to get bootleg ketamine past Cyber-Boss Hogg.

Musk revealed that the propulsion comes courtesy of 10 nozzles attached to “ultra high-pressure air tanks,” and he told the eager audience that the car will be going into production in 2028.

So now, is this the point where Popular Mechanics puts their name on the line to tell you that you’ll be driving one of Tesla’s flying cars in 2028? Absolutely not.

This is far from the first time someone has claimed to have invented the flying car. There have actually been a myriad of flying cars supposedly right around the corner for the last half-century or more, and Popular Mechanics has been there to cover them. Before Elon Musk, there was an inventor by the name of Stanley Hiller Jr. who dreamed of letting the average man take flight from his own driveway.

So, you know, fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice...

Okay, so We Probably Shouldn’t Have Promised You There Would Be a Flying Car by 1967

In July 1957, the cover of Popular Mechanics Magazine promised readers that the Hiller Helicopter Company’s Aerial Sedan was “your flying car for 1967.” The article’s author, Thomas E. Stimson Jr., even boasted to readers that they would “be able to order a four-door model, a sports job, or even a light truck configuration.”

Personal aerial automobiles were the dream of Stanley Hiller Jr, founder and namesake of the Hiller Helicopter Company. It’s no surprise Hiller believed it was possible; he’d invented the first coaxial helicopter at just 15 years old, and his XH-44 “Hiller-Copter” so impressed the U.S. Army that he got himself a draft deferment from WWII. But the post-war period saw Hiller make several attempts at some form of “flying car,” and he took Popular Mechanics along for the ride.

In our February 1951 issue, Hiller took Thomas E. Stimson, Jr. on a ride in a two-person helicopter “small enough to land on your lawn” called the Hiller Hornet. Priced under $5000 ($71k today), Hiller believed that the vehicle would already be on the market for consumers the following month, were it not for that darned Korean War. It’s true that manufacturing helicopters for the military during the then-ongoing Korean War commandeered most of Hiller's factory floor during that period, but the war wrapped up in July 1953, and the Hiller Hornet nevertheless did not, in fact, make its way to market that August.

Perhaps by then, Hiller’s focus was on the forthcoming Aerial Sedan. Looking like a cross between the iconic “Rocket 88” Oldsmobile of the 1950s and the Fantastic Four’s Fantasticar (still a few years away, debuting in 1961), the designs Hiller shared in our 1957 issue showcased both civilian and military applications for his flying vehicle. “How can engineers be so sure about something that hasn’t been flown yet?” our article asked. “For one thing, the flying fan is nothing more than four ducted fans that are held together by a framework that supports the engine and cabin.”

You can decide for yourself whether that seems safer or less safe than Tesla’s 10 nozzles and “ultra high-pressure air tanks.”

What likely doomed the Aerial Sedan actually appears a few paragraphs later:

“Probably the first flying fan will be in the form of an aerial Jeep, an aircraft in which the Army is greatly interested. Hiller Helicopters has submitted a proposal for a four-fan Jeep. Basic engineering studies have been completed. Performance and costs have been closely estimated.”

During the late 1950s, the U.S. Army became very interested in developing a flying car. They actually funded the development of several different models from competing companies. Eventually, though, the project was scrapped, as often happens with experimental military initiatives. Once that line of business dried up, Hiller refocused his efforts on helicopters, before pivoting in the 1960s to being a “company turnaround specialist.” The Hiller flying car was not to be.

Others have tried; in 1994 we showcased Kenneth G. Wernicke’s Aircar, for example. But to date, none of them wound up on your local auto dealer’s showroom floor.

The dream keeps crashing into practicality. Not to lean on that Jurassic Park line about scientists “so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should”—but just take a moment to think about everything that’s gone awry involving automobiles and airplanes in the last seventy years. Now imagine those two technologies were combined into one. Think of the reckless drivers who have nearly (or fully) crashed into your car, or even your house, and now you want to give them the gift of flight? Is that not like giving your cousin who blew his fingers off with a firecracker the key to the Raytheon warehouse?

Ultimately, only time will tell if Elon Musk makes good on his promise of a flying car in 2028. Perhaps he will achieve what Stanley Hiller couldn’t, for good or for ill.

All we can say for certain is, no, you didn’t get a flying car in 1967. But you did get the first Super Bowl, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, so ultimately, maybe you got the better deal back then.