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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein

Stratocar  
  A vehicle intended for use in traveling through the upper atmosphere.  

A specialized vehicle; not for use in driving on the surface (ground-car), or in the air but close to the ground (air-car), or to orbit (Joy Boat Junior.

Although, Zagat himself used stratoyacht to describe a ship able to fly up to orbit. I think Heinlein used "strato-yacht" in Methuselah's Children (1941).

"Swell," Jay applauded. "But what's to do now? We can't climb that mountain. It must be fifty miles high."

"Into space suits," I snapped. "And the Phobos carries a small stratocar as a lifeboat. If there's any atmosphere at all, and there must be or there wouldn't be any clouds, that will take us up there quicker than we came down..."

The buzzing hum of the stratocar's hydroxy motor battered against the side of that incredible mountain as we lifted straight up to its summit...

Our stratocar still perched, birdlike on the outer ledge.

Technovelgy from The Cavern of the Shining Pool, by Leo Zagat.
Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1937
Additional resources -

Compare to the air-car from A Matter of Size (1934) by Harry Bates.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Cavern of the Shining Pool
  More Ideas and Technology by Leo Zagat
  Tech news articles related to The Cavern of the Shining Pool
  Tech news articles related to works by Leo Zagat

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