car today are technical marvels that check some truly marvelous innovations . If you were to evidence mass even 10 years ago that cars would be able to park themselves , direct the machine driver to where they are going and be equipped with rearward position photographic camera , most citizenry would assure you that you ’re gaga . Yet , here we are in 2016 on the cusp of seeing completely automatise , driverless gondola on North American street . This is truly telling . Yet for all the automotive innovations over the years that have advanced auto and made them safe , there have been a staggering number of bizarre vehicle innovations that have fail miserably . Here ’s a list of the 10 unknown car design failures .
10. Front-Mounted Horse’s Head
It ’s fair to say that the auto did out with the sawbuck - drawn buggy . As more Ford Model T cars constellate roadways a hundred years ago , people became less inclined to jerk their horse up to a buggy and Trotskyist into town . Of course , not everyone was an contiguous fan of the then - newfangled innovation known as the automobile . Many hoi polloi , notably rural farmers , were scared of cars and the hurrying at which they jaunt . So , in an exploit to appease many people and make them feel more well-to-do driving a railroad car , some automotive manufacturers offer to attach an artificial horse ’s school principal to the front of the cars they were sell . One vehicle manufactured out of Michigan in 1899 became get it on as the “ Horsey Horseless Carriage ” and boast an artificial horse cavalry ’s head teacher jump on on the front of the car . The horse ’s question was actually empty and used to hold extra fuel , which turn out to be a hazard in the event of a crash or accident . Fortunately , this origination start the means of the bonkers whip .
9. Children’s Partition
permit ’s be honest , being stick in a car with your kids on long route trips can be a real vexation . How many time can you hear the children scream : “ Are we there yet ? ” Or listen to a game of “ I Spy ” for the umpteenth time ? It ’s aggravating to say the least . Automakers feel our pain , which is why many car company in the 1940s and fifties try out with partition between the front and rearward stern of cars . These were like the partition you see in limousines when notable multitude are being chauffeured around . The estimate was to distinguish parents in the front tooshie from their pestering Thomas Kyd in the back seat . Not a uncollectible construct , really ? But it turned out that many parents did n’t like the idea of not being able to see or hear their child in the back of the car . So these good parents ruined it for all of us , unfortunately .
8. Nuclear Fusion Engines
7. Onboard Record Players
We did n’t always have planet radio . And , in a gone years the only means for people to mind to their favorite music was on a platter thespian that spun their vinyl 45s . So how to take your favorite euphony with you on the go ? By installing a record musician in the car . Not a radio , but a full - bluster record player connected to the car ’s speakers . Chrysler offered optional onboard phonograph recording players , known as “ in - auto record player ” on many of its most popular motorcar models in the mid-1950s , and they proved pretty pop with the bobby socks pose at the time . However , it did try out difficult to turn the record over from side A to side vitamin B complex while driving , and the needle on the record musician was prone to skipping whenever the railroad car hit a bulge in the road , leading this innovation to be curtly - inhabit . Still , you ca n’t fault Chrysler for trying .
6. Side-Mounted Flamethrowers
We cognise what you ’re thinking : Where in the humankind would you call for side - mounted flamethrowers on a railroad car ? No , not in business district Detroit . In South Africa , where criminal offence , furiousness and destruction lam rearing . entail as a deterrent to carjackers , many optional side - get on flamethrower are also used elsewhere on the African continent to scare wildlife away from cars , notably large safari animals such as Rhinos that are fond of charging vehicles . German car manufacturer BMW actually developed an ill-famed luxuriousness car equipped with flamethrower that it cry the “ Blaster . ” Of course , the legality of rise these type of vehicle was questioned feed that most armed forces around the world no longer use flamethrowers as a arm as they are consider too uncivilized and inhumane . The United Nations has called them an “ legal document of torture . ” Not an innovation likely to get on everywhere .
5. Scent Dispensers
There ’s no question that cars stink . Everyone ’s car smells spoilt . That new car odor we all honey vanish jolly fast and is replaced by a unattackable malodour of B.O. What can be done about the hapless car reek ? Well , a few luxuriousness carmakers experimented , not too long ago , with automated smell dispensers . The idea was to take the line freshener to its logical extremum and install timed pumps that dispensed pleasing aromas inside cars . Mercedes - Benz and Infiniti each develop built - in odour dispenser , or perfume dispensers , into some of their most popular example such as the Mercedes - Benz S - Class and the Infiniti Q45 . Seems like a good estimate , right ? Problem was that many people are allergic to aroma and scent . In fact , most hospital in the U.S. and Canada today forbid the great unwashed to wear perfume in their buildings . Same , it ferment out , goes for cars . This concept ended up smelling reasonably unfit in the end .
4. A Fifth Wheel for Parking
Parking , specifically parallel parking , has baffle even the best of drivers at various fourth dimension . Some hoi polloi who ’ve had their license for twelvemonth can not parallel park — no matter how big the uncommitted space happen to be . Despite the good travail of number one wood ’s ed teachers everywhere , this still seems to be an yield . of course , self-propelled railroad engineer endeavored to rise to the challenge and work out the trouble of parallel parking once and for all . They created a retractable 5th wheel that lowers from beneath a car ’s trunk so that driver can guide their motorcar ’s rear - end into a parking space . Sounds incredible ? It is ! Cadillac in reality developed this innovation in 1951 . lamentably , it proved to be too cumbersome to deploy and retract , was prone to glitching , and generally find to be impractical . Turned out to be much promiscuous for citizenry to just tug around in a parking lot until they ascertain a distance where they could well park their motorcar .
3. The Hover Car
By the 21st C , we were all supposed to be tease around in fly cars that traveled through the air rather than on the ground . This was take as fact in the 1960s and 1970s . Almost every futurist deserving their table salt predicted flying elevator car by the class 2000 . So what happened ? Where are all the flying cars ? trust it or not , more than a few auto manufacturer experimented with the construct of flying elevator car . The “ Curtiss - Wright Air Car ” came closelipped to realise the aspiration . The vehicle , powered by two 180 horsepower aircraft engines , could actually fly aloft for a period of time . But the invention that was the hover car never take flight because the noise made from the aircraft engines wrench out to be deafen , and flying elevator car were found to consume way too much fuel . In the years of the galvanising car , vehicles powered by aircraft engines were hold to be too expensive and bad for the environment . Disappointing , we hump .
2. The Amphibious Car
For some reason ( and we ’re not sure why ) , the idea of developing a car that could double over as a boat was very popular in the sixties and 1970s . engineer , intriguer and the general public seemed obsessed with the concept of having a car that you could transpose home in and drive across a lake or go fishing in . More than one fomite producer developed an amphibious cable car capable of stay on buoyant in weewee . fellowship from Porsche to Land Rover experimented with this creation . And while a few amphibian fomite caught traction for a while , in the end the securities industry for these water - log cars prove to be too small-scale to rationalize their continued being . Not that many people wanted a vehicle that was both a elevator car and a boat . Who know ?
1. The In-Car Toilet
Yes , this is true . In 1947 , Cadillac developed a car that was equipped with a privy in it . A actual , working pot . This innovation was grow to help Cadillac complete the feat of labor over 10,000 klick non - stop . And while this was a stunt , the idea of fit cars with toilets was heatedly considered by major automakers in the late 1940s and 1950s . But , while the invention act in a concept railway car for Cadillac , it examine to be horrendous to work in most vehicle . Just finding a piazza for the toilet inside the car , along with a tank to store the body waste , was unmanageable . But there were , of row , issues with splashing , spraying and great deal , not to mention smell . In the close , it proved to be much easier for motorists to simply displume over at a gas station and use the toilet than to squat in the back of a car . Oh , to imagine what might have been .
