Italian designer Pierpaolo Lazzarini has delivered some compellingly strange concepts over the years and his latest flying car design is no exception. The Hover Coupè is a gorgeous looking blend of retro-style with future-tech.
The Lazzarini Design Studio motto is, "Think about the future, never forget the past," and the Hover Coupè is a perfect encapsulation of that idea. The design is inspired by the iconic Italian car brand Isotta Fraschini, most specifically the early 20th century Tipo 8, a legendary automobile that exemplifies luxury.
The concept takes the classic styling of this iconic car and launches it into the 21st century, removing the wheels and reimagining it as a flying automobile. Lazzarini tells us that this concept, "maintains the soft lines of the 40's yet is powered by 4 turbine engine, similar to the ones in use in commercial planes, but smaller in diameter."
Lazzarini's futurist concepts often lean into the unrealizable, but the company did make its mini-yacht Jet Capsule a reality recently, so it isn't all pie-in-the-sky dreaming.
Take a look through our gallery for a look at more of Lazzarini's eye-popping ideas, from a floating UFO house to a quadcopter taxi dubbed the Identified Flying Object (IFO).
Source: Lazzarini Design Studio
I think it is called retro; combining old style with new technology. I don't believe it is a new idea.
We are just now starting to see fully electric aircraft and most are severely lacking in range. There are some with decent range buy they are typical fixed wing aircraft with the advantage of aerodynamic lift, ALL the fully electric aircraft in a "quadcoptor" format have horrible range because they rely almost 100% on thrust to stay in the air.
Bottom line, a design such as this would be useless to the average person if it were fully electric because it would probably only be able to fly for about 5-10 minutes before needing a recharge.