Research is carried out before a vehicle goes into series production. Does the concept work? Anyone want this? Is it economical? Is it realistic at all? These and more questions can be answered with concepts and prototypes. Sometimes the result is almost finished cars, sometimes it’s just a wild idea – and sometimes it’s just enough for a one-off.
Atom or Electricity?
There can be many reasons why a car doesn’t make it to series production. In the 1950s, people thought aloud about replacing the internal combustion engine with a nuclear reactor – and collected ideas on how to build such a car. On paper, that initially sounded like a revolution: the French Simca Fulgur was supposed to drive 5,000 kilometers per reactor filling, Ford even spoke of 8,000 kilometers for the Nucleon – without any exhaust gases. Why nuclear cars ultimately failed – there must have been many reasons. In any case, no concept made it onto the street.
BMW, on the other hand, showed that progressive drives can also be just a little bit too early. With the E1, the company presented a thoroughbred electric car in the early 1990s that, with a targeted range of 200 kilometers, would have been a real alternative for cities even back then. On an information sheet from the IAA in 1993, BMW wrote: “If the market confirms this concept, the study could become a tangible reality in the near future,” recalls the “”. The market – and rather BMW – did not confirm. It wasn’t until 2013 that they reported back with an electric car – the i3.
Economic developments often cause new ideas to be buried too early. For example with the Audi Avus, the unofficial predecessor of the Audi R8. The super sports car probably failed because Audi had other worries in the 1990s than building a record-breaking super sports car.
It is not always regrettable that certain things have not found their way into road traffic in large numbers. The best example is probably the Rolls-Royce outhouse in American industrialist Joseph J. Maschuch’s Silver Wraith. It’s not documented if he ever actually used the one-off, but the idea is enough to make one’s nose turn up. Because the golden bowl had no flushing on board, but only opened a flap that threw the contents on the spot.
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Source: Stern
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