Carl Chatfield home page | The Dymaxion Car

Carl sees the Dymaxion Car

In August 2007 I had the chance to visit the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. On display there is the Dymaxion Car, built in 1934 by Buckminster Fuller and colleagues. Seeing the car in person was a thrill for me. As a long-time Bucky fan, I was familiar with the car in general but had never seen it in person. That's me next to the Dymaxion Car in the photo above. I'm standing a bit forward of the car so it is not as small as it may appear.

Here is the text of the information board displayed with the car (and pictured below):

Model: "2" 4D Transport

Built by: 4D Company, Bridgeport, Connecticut

Price: N/A

Engine: L-Head, Ford V-8 Cylinder, 75 H.P.

Bore: 3-1/16"

Stroke: 3-3/4"

Displacement: 221.0 Cu. In

Richard Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller was recognized as a poet, artist, engineer, architect, cartographer, mathematician, sailor and philosopher. Many believe his invention of the geodesic dome is as architecturally important as the Roman arch. Fuller's far ranging interests also included automobiles and he designed (with the help of Starling Burgess and Anna Biddle) the Dymaxion, one of the most significant and progressive cars ever built in the early 1930's. Burgess, a famous naval architect and aircraft builder, was hired to engineer the car and direct its construction. Biddle, a wealthy Philadelphia socialite and longtime friend of Fuller, agreed to financially back the project. The three-wheeled cars were built in the old Locomobile factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Fuller coined the word Dymaxion from dynamic, maximum, and ion. To Fuller, a three-wheeler wasn't radical, it was simply logical. He didn't care about marketing statistics, buyer profiles, or luxury styling cues. This highly streamlined car used a Ford V-8 engine at the rear to drive the two front wheels. The single rear wheel steered like the rudder of a ship. Since the rear wheel could pivot 90 degrees, the car could easily turn on its own axis, giving the driver the sensation of meeting himself coming.

One of the most radical features of the Dymaxion design was that it was mounted on two frames, hinged at the front, with one frame carrying the engine and drive chain while the other carried the rear wheel mount, suspension and steering. There were no rear windows, just a periscope. Top speed was about 120 mph with fuel economy between 25 and 30 mpg. During 1933 and 1934, three Dymaxions were built before Fuller ran out of cash. #1 and #3 have disappeared. #2 is displayed here. (copyright National Automobile Museum)

Click the thumbnail images below for larger views.

	First some historical context. This car is a 1933 Packard, also in the museum. The Dymaxion Car came just one year later, but what a different design philosophy!
	Front shot. Note that the exterior had been restored but not the interior, so all of the windows had silver opaque film applied. The aircraft and nautical inspirations are especially evident here. Fuller had ideas of the Dymaxion design serving as the core of a car/automobile/boat vehicle. As with many of Fuller's ideas, the technology to achieve this vision did not exist at the time but he was planting the seeds.
	Here is the information board that accompanies the car.
	Side view. The little hump on the roof is the periscope for rear-view viewing. The single rear wheel is essentially invisible from the side. I don't know if the same nomenclature used with bicycles applies to automobiles, but if it does then the Dymaxion Car would be called a "tadpole recumbent," that is two wheels in front and one in the rear, as you find on most recumbent trikes. (the other layout, two wheels in the back and one in front is called a delta trike). But with the Dymaxion, it's switched around--dual front-wheel drive, single rear-wheel tiller steering.
	Detail, front right side.
	Detail, front. One wonders if all the window pane pillars were distracting to the driver. (Ack! sorry for the blurry picture)
	Detail, right side.
	Detail, rear right side.
	The Dymaxion Car might be the most extreme case of streamlined automobile styling from the 1930s, but it was not the only one. Here for example is a 1934 Chrysler Airflow--a streamlined body on an otherwise typical car frame of its era.