Today's #MotorMonday vehicle is the Curtiss-Wright Air Car. This design drawing shows the Model 2500, a 21-foot-long, 8-foot-wide, and 5-foot-tall functioning hover car designed under contract for the department of Army Transportation Research Command.
After the military declared them unsuitable for military use (the vehicles were unreliable on rocky or uneven ground), the Curtiss-Wright Corporation attempted to salvage the project with the Bee, a modified design intended for use by the public. Sadly, the Bee never made it to production, although the U.S. Army Transportation Museum has preserved one of the original Air Cars designed for military use.
The ca. 1959 promotional postcard for the Model 2500 is part of Hagley Library's Z. Taylor Vinson collection of transportation ephemera (Accession 20100108.ZTV). For over sixty years, Zachary Taylor Vinson (1933-2009), a senior lawyer with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1993-1995 president of the Society of Automotive Historians, and 1995-2009 editor of Automotive History Review amassed a large and comprehensive collection of printed material documenting on the history transportation, particularly automobiles.
Our Digital Archive offers a small selection of materials from the Vinson collection, including images of the Curtis-Wright Bee, documenting the history of the automobile and transportation. Click here to view them online.