Bill Allison, the reknowned suspension engineer from Detroit, pointed out that any three wheeled vehicle is inherently dangerous. When I told him that I really liked the Mog, he said \"Oh no! Very dangerous. So it is interesting that the two three wheeled vehicles entered into the Progressive Automotive X-Prize were not winners.
Bill held some 80 or so patents in suspension designs and developed the wonderful Packard Torsion Ride suspension which Jay Leno delighfully extolls in Jay\'s Garage. Alex Moulton was aware of Bill\'s work. He mentioned as a child getting in and out of a Packard with his friends to see it self-level.
Bucky and Isamu and Norman are all greats in my book and it is wonderful that Norman built this replica.
But make no bones about it, It is a dangerous design. Any notion that 3 wheels lessen rolling resistance was quickly refuted by Bill with scale models. Look at rail cars for over a century... bogied 8 wheel vehicles have the least rolling resistance. The Japanese professor has it right.
Bill also perfected the wind engine fan designs in his retirement achieving the theoretical maximum efficiency of 59%. So what are we doing putting up such low efficiency fans?
It seems that few understand the essence of fine engineering, just as few understand the beauty of Norman\'s work.
Bill

It\'d be fun to see a derivative of this design, smaller fuselage, electric drive and modern materials.

The first Dymaxion didn\'t crash, it was hit by a truck. The truck was towed away before the media got to the scene to take pictures and write lies about how it crashed because it was unsafe. Conspiracy theories state that GM, Ford or Chrysler had the truck driver ram the Dymaxion and arranged its fast removal. Whether or not the reporters were paid to lie or if their stories of the \"crash\" came from seeing just the wrecked Dymaxion at the scene is another can-o-worms.
The first Dymaxion had a curved windshield made of plastic, but it scratched easily, which is why the later versions used several flat panes of glass.
The rear suspension of these vehicles is an amazing piece of engineering. The rear wheel is mounted to a giant V shaped arm which pivots at a point about the middle of the wheelbase. The reason is to minimize changes in caster for steering. The original design called for a downward bend in the middle of the V arm to minimize its intrusion on cabin space, but due to time, money and engineering constraints the first Dymaxion was built with straight V arm sides. Later ones had the bend.

It is a mistake to dismiss all 3-wheelers as \"inherently unsafe\". As a quick google-search will show, there have been several very successful 3W designs over a number of decades; early examples include Morgan, Messerschmitt and Heinkel, more recently there has been an explosion of new 3W concepts and production vehicles. Designers are increasingly seeing the merits of the 3W in this age of lightness and efficiency. The fact that two of the X-Prize finalists WERE 3Ws clearly says it all.
It is true that some 3Ws are hopelessly unstable (Robin Reliant, Bond Bug..) - because they feature the 1 front/2 rear wheel configuration, guaranteed to fall over their noses when braking into a corner.
In the 80\'s, a popular motoring mag featured an article track-testing a Ford Sierra Cosworth against a genuine, original Morgan 3W wearing modern rubber and with upgraded brakes. The morgan lapped quicker - because it out-cornered the Cosworth!

Front two/rear one designs are VERY stable when the rest of the suspension is designed to modern standards. Some of the new hot-rod trikes give credence to their stability along with computer stability control (Can-Am Spyder, for example)

I think the rear-steering is unstable, though, and prone to ground-looping. But, just my 2 cents worth.

Doc Rings

Hi Facebook User, you obviously know a lot about the Dymaxion - thanks for your contribution! I never meant to imply that the Dymaxion was at fault during the crash; as you say, the media portrayed it badly and though stories blaming the car were later retracted, the damage to its reputation was already done. That said, Fuller admitted the button-down canvas roof did not provide sufficient crash protection. Thanks again!

Bill Connolly, who designed the Delorean, later (1986) went into business for himself, designing a motor home called the Vixen (see vixenrv.org and .com). I\'ve owned one for several years and love it. It looks a lot like the Dymaxion car, was designed in a wind tunnel, has less drag than many cars, and gets me 26 mpg.
I\'d love to see it redesigned with carbon fiber and hybrid motors. Connolly designed it when gas prices started going up, but as soon as he marketed it, prices dropped again, and so did public interest. Maybe its time has come again.

Paul van Valkenburgh would beg to differ with Allison. He ran a set of tests on three wheelers almost 30 years ago that proved they could be safe. The results of the tests are still available from the SAE here:
http://papers.sae.org/820140/
Robert Q. Riley would also disgree. My guess is that Allison is working almost purely from \"conventional wisdom\" as he was taught rather than any kind of firsthand experience. If Allison was so brilliant, his wind turbine design with the staggered blades would have seen some kind of production, even if only from a single manufacturer. As it is, that turbine is only known by a few as a historical curiosity that never left Allison\'s workshop.

Just before this article, I read the one about the 100 most reliable cars of all time...tops was the Honda Accord.
You know, there\'s a crowd that wants to think that some esoteric, poetic, noble professor has the \"right way\" to design things from his head.
And then there\'s the engineer that things design comes sticking to the basics and getting those right.
There were 3 Dymaxions. There are millions of Accords.

Yes John and there is an even bigger crowd that thinks mankind are the epitome of all it surveys while it still races toward the abyss like lemmings!
P.S I think you will find visionaries pen most things we have before the engineering starts, even the Accord.