Free Republic

To Timbuktu by flying car: it sounds the most unlikely journey on earth; a sci-fi voyage from the pages of Jules Verne. But this is no fantasy. The car really flies. And the journey will become reality early in the new year when two explorers set off from London in a propeller-powered dune buggy heading for the Sahara. The seed of this improbable adventure was sown four years ago when Gilo Cardozo, a paramotor manufacturer, had a eureka moment. For those not familiar with paramotors, picture a parachutist with a giant industrial fan strapped to his back, which provides...

A flying saucer that glides 10 feet off the ground and carries two passengers has gone into commercial production. Moller International, based in Davis, Calif., has begun to manufacture parts for its Jetsons-like personal flying pod, the M200G Volantor. The M200G is the size of a small car and is designed to take off and land vertically. • Click here to see a video of an M200 prototype in action. Company founder Paul Moller, in a press release, called the craft "the ultimate off-road vehicle" as it is able to travel over any surface. "It's not a hovercraft, although its...

Born too late for the Wright Brothers' first plane? Missed out on Henry Ford's Model T? You can still have a piece of transportation history: the prototype for an unprecedented mode of transportation that melds sci-fi and state-of-the-art technology.• The M400 Skycar is the world's first personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, designed to elevate individual drivers above the headaches of commuting and the dangers of highway travel.• In development since the 1960s, the Skycar has completed successful hovering flights, and its first manned, un-tethered flight is planned for Fall 2005.• Developed by Moller International, the three-wheeled, folding-wing craft...