Editing Buckminster Fuller (section)

=== Transportation ===

{{main|Dymaxion car}}

{{quote box|width=280px|quote='''''The Omni-Media-Transport:<br />'''''With such a vehicle at our disposal, [Fuller] felt that human travel, like that of birds, would no longer be confined to airports, roads, and other bureaucratic boundaries, and that autonomous free-thinking human beings could live and prosper wherever they chose.<ref name="universe">{{cite book | title = Buckminster Fuller's Universe | publisher = Basic Books | author = Lloyd Steven Sieden | date = August 11, 2000 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rG__1rhIzE0C&q=%22henry+ford%22+%22dymaxion+car%22&pg=PA177 | isbn = 9780738203799 }}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>|source = —''Lloyd S. Sieden, Bucky Fuller's Universe'', 2000
<br />
'''''To his young daughter Allegra:'''''<br />
Fuller described the Dymaxion as a "''zoom-mobile'', explaining that it could hop off the road at will, fly about, then, as deftly as a bird, settle back into a place in traffic".<ref name="zoom">{{cite web | title = R. (Richard) Buckminster Fuller 1895-1983 | publisher = Coachbuilt.com | url = http://www.coachbuilt.com/des/f/fuller/fuller.htm}}</ref>}}

[[File:Dymaxion car photo.jpg|thumb|220px|The Dymaxion car, c. 1933, artist [[Diego Rivera]] shown entering the car, carrying coat]]

The [[Dymaxion car]] was a vehicle designed by Fuller, featured prominently at Chicago's 1933-1934 [[Century of Progress]] World's Fair.<ref>{{patent |US|2101057}}</ref> During the [[Great Depression]], Fuller formed the ''Dymaxion Corporation'' and built three prototypes with noted naval architect [[Starling Burgess]] and a team of 27 workmen — using donated money as well as a family inheritance.<ref name="biography">{{cite book | title = The 20th Century A-GI: Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 7 | page = 1266 | publisher = Routledge | author = Frank Magill | date = 1999 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Nq1GU6I5umQC&q=fuller+dymaxion+car+philip+pearson&pg=PA1266| isbn = 978-1136593345 }}</ref><ref name="nyt06">{{cite news | title = A 3-Wheel Dream That Died at Takeoff | newspaper = The New York Times | author = Phil Patton | date = June 2, 2008 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/automobiles/collectibles/15BUCKY.html}}</ref>

Fuller associated the word ''Dymaxion'', a blend of the words '''''dy'''namic'', '''''max'''imum'', and ''tens'''ion'''''<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=rG__1rhIzE0C&q=Dymaxion+dynamic&pg=PA132 |title= Buckminster Fuller's Universe |page= 132 |first= Lloyd Steven |last= Sieden |year= 2000 |publisher= Basic Books |isbn= 978-0-7382-0379-9 }}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> to sum up the goal of his study, "maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input".<ref>{{cite book |url= http://www.anb.org/articles/13/13-02560.html |title= R. Buckminster Fuller |page= 17 |first= John |last= McHale |year= 1962 |publisher= Prentice-Hall }}</ref>

The Dymaxion was not an automobile but rather the 'ground-taxying mode' of a vehicle that might one day be designed to fly, land and drive — an "Omni-Medium Transport" for air, land and water.<ref name="Marks 1973 104">{{Cite book |title=The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller |last=Marks  |first=Robert |year=1973 |publisher=Anchor Press / Doubleday |pages=104
}}</ref>  Fuller focused on the landing and taxiing qualities, and noted severe limitations in its handling.  The team made improvements and refinements to the platform,<ref name="universe"/> and Fuller noted the Dymaxion "was an invention that could not be made available to the general public without considerable improvements".<ref name="universe"/>

The bodywork was aerodynamically designed for increased fuel efficiency and its [[Automobile platform|platform]] featured a lightweight cromoly-steel hinged chassis, rear-mounted V8 engine, front-drive, and three-wheels. The vehicle was steered via the third wheel at the rear, capable of 90° [[steering|steering lock]]. Able to steer in a tight circle, the Dymaxion often caused a sensation,  bringing nearby traffic to a halt.<ref name="Kleiner">{{cite book | title = The Age of Heretics | publisher = Jossey Bass, Warren Bennis Signature Series | author = Art Kleiner | date = April 2008 | quote = In 1934, Fuller had interested auto magnate Walter Chrysler in financing his Dymaxion car, a durable, three-wheeled, aerodynamic land vehicle modeled after an airplane fuselage. Fuller had built three models that drew enthusiastic crowds wherever. Like all Fuller's other projects (he was responsible for refining and developing the geodesic dome, the first practical dome structure) it was inexpensive, durable and energy efficient; Fuller worked diligently to cut back the amount of material and energy used by any product he designed. "You've produced exactly the car I've always wanted to produce," the mechanically apt Chrysler told him. Then Chrysler noted ruefully, Fuller had taken one-third the time and one fourth the money Chrysler's corporation usually spent producing prototypes — prototypes Chrysler himself usually hated in the end. For a few months, it had seemed Chrysler would go ahead and introduce Fuller's car. But the banks that financed Chrysler's wholesale distributors vetoed the move by threatening to call in their loans. The bankers were afraid (or so Fuller said years later) that an advanced new design would diminish the value of the unsold motor vehicles in dealers' showrooms.  For every new car sold, five used cars had to be sold to finance the distribution and production chain, and those cars would not sell if Fuller's invention made them obsolete. | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YDQgqe4lpLQC&q=the+age+of+heretics+dymaxion+like+all+other+of+fuller%27s&pg=PT26| isbn = 9780470443415 }}</ref><ref name="Marks 1973 29">{{Cite book |title=The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller |last=Marks  |first=Robert |year=1973 |publisher=Anchor Press / Doubleday |pages=29 }}</ref>

Shortly after launch, a prototype rolled over and crashed, killing the Dymaxion's driver and seriously injuring its passengers.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Nevala-Lee |first=Alec |date=August 2, 2022 |title=The Dramatic Failure of Buckminster Fuller's "Car of the Future" |url=https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/the-dymaxion-car-the-true-history-of-buckminster-fullers-failed-automobile.html |access-date=October 20, 2022 |website=Slate Magazine |language=en}}</ref> Fuller blamed the accident on a second car that collided with the Dymaxion.<ref name="accident">{{cite web|title=Passenger Files: Francis T. Turner, Colonel William Francis Forbes-Sempill and Charles Dollfuss |publisher=Stanford University Archives |url=http://hotgates.stanford.edu/Bucky/dymaxion/crash.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120821193516/http://hotgates.stanford.edu/Bucky/dymaxion/crash.htm |archive-date=August 21, 2012 }}</ref><ref name="carandriver">{{cite magazine | title = Maximum Dynamism! Jeff Lane's Fuller Dymaxion Replica Captures Insane Cool of the Originals | magazine = [[Car and Driver]] | author = Davey G. Johnson | date = March 18, 2015 | url = http://blog.caranddriver.com/maximum-dynamism-jeff-lanes-fuller-dymaxion-replica-captures-insane-cool-of-the-originals/ | access-date = May 1, 2015 | archive-date = May 18, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150518065656/http://blog.caranddriver.com/maximum-dynamism-jeff-lanes-fuller-dymaxion-replica-captures-insane-cool-of-the-originals/ | url-status = dead }}</ref> Eyewitnesses reported, however, that the other car hit the Dymaxion only after it had begun to roll over.<ref name=":0" />

Despite courting the interest of important figures from the auto industry, Fuller used his family inheritance to finish the second and third prototypes<ref name="transverse">{{cite book | title = Inventions: The Patented Works of R. Buckminster Fuller | publisher = St. Martin's Press | author =  R. Buckminster Fuller | date = 1983}}</ref> — eventually selling all three, dissolving ''Dymaxion Corporation'' and maintaining the Dymaxion was never intended as a commercial venture.<ref name="business">{{cite web | title = About Fuller, Session 9, Part 15 | publisher = Bucky Fuller Institute | url = https://bfi.org/about-fuller/resources/everything-i-know/session-9 | access-date = May 1, 2015 | archive-date = May 18, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150518082909/https://bfi.org/about-fuller/resources/everything-i-know/session-9 | url-status = dead }}</ref>  One of the three original prototypes survives.<ref>{{cite web | title=Dymaxion Car at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. The only surviving prototype
 | url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/dymaxion-car-at-the-national-automobile-museum | author=Allison C. Meier | publisher= AtlasObscura | access-date= September 27, 2020}}</ref>