{"id":845,"date":"2007-02-08T16:11:34","date_gmt":"2007-02-08T16:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=845"},"modified":"2007-02-08T16:11:34","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T16:11:34","slug":"let_me_get_my_checkbook_futuri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2007\/02\/08\/let_me_get_my_checkbook_futuri\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Me Get My Checkbook: Futuristic Cars Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine just sent me a link to an eBay auction<\/a> that ought to have plenty of crossover appeal for both the geek and motorhead demographics: somebody is selling<\/span> was selling one of the three Lexus concept cars built for the movie Minority Report<\/i>.<\/p>\n

[Update:<\/b> The eBay listing has been removed since this morning. Interesting. Oh, well, the rest of the entry still stands. I’ve added a link below so you can see what the Lexus looks like.]<\/p>\n

As much as I love science fiction flicks, I’ve got to be honest: most futuristic movie cars leave me cold. They’re inevitably just bubbles<\/a> or boxes<\/a> on wheels, without any attempt to make them look “real-world.” This Lexus<\/a>, though, impressed me in the movie as something that (a) might actually evolve from current automotive design, and (b) would be a design that people might actually want<\/i> to own. I know I would. The opening bid on this one is a perfectly reasonable $88,000. Mere pocket change. I ought to have enough left over to pick up a Blade Runner<\/i> spinner<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n

Oh, and speaking of flying cars (which the spinner is, if you don’t know), it seems they might not be so far off after all: according to this article<\/a>, an Israeli engineer is working on a flying utility vehicle that he hopes to have on the market by 2010. Rafi Yoeli’s X-Hawk is designed to perform like a helicopter but without a chopper’s big exposed rotor blades that get in the way of snuggling up alongside a cliff or a building. The X-Hawk would instead have two enclosed fans at the front and rear with a cockpit and modular cabin that could be swapped out for different missions. It’ll supposedly be quieter than a chopper, too, which has obvious advantages for the military and, I suppose, for anyone bothered by that “whop-whop” sound. (Personally, I’ve always rather liked the sound of choppers; I was bummed when the Army stopped using Hueys, because I grew up hearing them off in the distance every day in the summertime.)<\/p>\n

Yoeli has gotten a prototype to lift off (a mere three feet, but still, it did<\/i> take off), and it looks much more practical to my admittedly ignorant eyes than a lot of the flying car designs I’ve seen. I’ll be watching further developments on this project closely.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested, too, here’s Yoeli’s company web site<\/a>, which includes conceptual information<\/a> and a decent technical overview<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine just sent me a link to an eBay auction that ought to have plenty of crossover appeal for both the geek and motorhead demographics: somebody is selling was selling one of the three Lexus concept cars built for the movie Minority Report. [Update: The eBay listing has been removed since this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}