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"Writing about the future, I have a vested interest in there being a future for me to write about."
- John Brunner
 |
| Gyrocar | ||
| A two-wheeled, self-balancing automobile. |
It would be a unique and exotic sight, wouldn't it?
| Most of the cars were between sixty and seventy horse-power; the Amphibian alone being as low as forty-five; while the Capri was eighty, the Gowfer's Goer a hundred, and the huge Liebig a hundred and twenty horse-power.
And it was among these leviathans that the little gyrocar was daring to thrust its puny self, with its two young drivers - and their dog... Indeed, the gyrocar was a sight to make a man look twice. Its two wheels being, naturally, under the centre of the car, were largely hidden by the body; and the absence of the usual four wheels at the corners made it appear to be gliding over the ground without visible means of support. |
| From Two Boys in a Gyrocar the story of a New York to Paris motor race,
by Kenneth Brown. Published by Houghton Mifflin in 1911 Additional resources -
|
Eric Frank Russell lets his imagination go in Sinister Barriers (1939):
They hit ground level, and Wohl
straightened out, saying, “Those whirligigs sure give me a kick!”
Graham swallowed a suitable remark,
his attention caught by the long, streamlined, aluminium-bronze shape of another gyrocar. ■ It flashed along William
Street toward them, passed with an audible swoosh of air, sped up the ramp
to the corkscrew from which they had
just descended. As it passed, Graham’s
sharp eyes caught sight of a pale, haggard face staring fixedly through the
machine’s flexible glass windshield...
Wohl pressed the accelerator stud, the two-wheeled speedster plunged forward, its incased gyroscope emitting a faint hum...
He held his breath while
they cut round another decrepit four-wheeler whose driver gesticulated
wildly.
“Every jellopy ought to be banned
from the skyways,” Wohl snarled.
Compare to the Gyro-Hat from An Experiment in Gyro-Hats (1926) by Ellis Parker Butler, the tumblebug from The Roads Must Roll (1940) by Robert Heinlein, the Two-Wheeled Ground Car from First Lensman (1950) by E.E. 'Doc' Smith, the Gyro Two-Wheeled Truck from The Sign of the Tiger (1958) by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer), the Gyrocar (Gyro) from The Ring (1969) by Piers Anthony (w/R. Margroff) and the smart bike from Distraction (1998) by Bruce Sterling.
With a swift turn that produced a
yelp of rubber from the rear wheel, the
gyrocar spun off the skyway, and on
to a corkscrew. It whirled around the
spirals with giddying effect.
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and Technology by Kenneth Brown
Tech news articles related to Two Boys in a Gyrocar the story of a New York to Paris motor race
Tech news articles related to works by Kenneth Brown
Gyrocar-related
news articles:
- Gyro-X Self-Balancing Two-Wheeler Car
- Gyroscopic Median-Straddling Mass Transit Vehicles
| Tianjin Solar Vehicle From Hanergy (2022) Looking Like Heinlein's (1940) |
| Sky Cruise Nuclear Powered Flying Hotel Concept |
| Lightyear 0 World's First Production-Ready Solar Car |
| Elon Musk: Production Of Robotaxis In 2024 |
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'... the two pairs of waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
'THE SPACE VESSEL was traveling swiftly… For over five thousand years they had Voyaged on and on.’
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'The sun-quilt was a patchwork of colors and materials on the inward side, but silvered on the outward side...'
'Jim, I saw them reduce four of my doctors and nurses into those little cubes!'
'Fats Jordan was hanging in the center of the Big Glass Balloon, hugging his guitar to his massive black belly above his purple shorts..'
'When confronted by hills, or rough terrain, it did not stop, but simply slowed until the task demanded equaled its steady power output.'
'... the brain is no longer subjected to the accustomed pull, and it expands slightly in all directions.'
