Invisible Themepark

Category: Vehicles

General category for cutaway drawings related to cars, trucks, and anything to do with land transport.

  • Cars Will Travel in Tubes by Year 2000

    Cars Will Travel in Tubes by Year 2000

    The Year 2000–as it was called before 2000–is looking awfully distant with each passing year. Will it ever happen? And what I mean by this is the chasm between what was promised and what we’ve got: the old “Where’s my jetpack?” meme. Or, “I wanted cars in tubes but all I’ve got is Twitter.”

    Yes, cars that travel in tubes. This one comes from the engineers at Honeywell, in the 1950s a cutting-edge company sprouting all sorts of innovations. This photo, from Popular Mechanics, December 1957, comes with no context other than the caption, “Honeywell engineer predicts that by A.D. 2000 cars will zip through network of crashproof pneumatic tunnels.”

  • Camper Built Inside a Car, 1952

     

    The illustrator for this drawing is unknown, which is a shame because it’s such a precisely rendered cutaway of a 1949 Nash that had been converted into a camper.

    Lucius Sheets of Huntington, Indiana, converted his Nash into a camper that allowed him to sleep, cook, and eat on the road, saving motel expenses.

    The right rear door, where the woman stands, was the meal center where basics could be stored.  A piece of plywood attached to hooks near the food center and served as the table.  Mr. and Mrs. Sheets preferred to stand while eating.

    Best as we can tell, Lucius Sheets died around 1979.

    Click to Enlarge to 943 x 607 px

    Source:  Popular Science, October 1952

  • Two Story Trailer Cutway, 1952

    From the magazine, we’re told that this trailer, from Holan Engineering from Elwood, Indiana, has two stories and an attic, a plastic-tiled kitchen and bathroom, and a living room with a picture window. The trailer is 8 feet wide by 40 feet long.

    What they don’t tell us is that this is a mobile home, not meant to travel any farther than from the dealer’s lot to the mobile home park or vacation spot near the lake.

    The trailer blog Portable Levittown states that this trailer later took the name Ventoura Loft-Liner.

    Source:  Popular Science, June 1952

     

  • Arctic Wanigan Cutaway, 1950

    The “wanigan” was an 8 x 24 foot mobile caboose that was attached to the back of Arctic explorers’ tracked wagon trains.

    The wanigan had four bunks, refrigerator, coal stove, table, sink, and latrine.

    Click to Enlarge to 594 x 478 px:

    Arctic Wanigan Cutaway 1950

    Source:  Popular Mechanics May 1950

  • Pickup Truck Camper Cutaway, 1967

    Pickup Truck Camper Cutaway 1967

    This pickup truck camper was pretty state-of-the-art stuff for RVs in the late 1960s.

    It had a pass-through to the cab; 12v outlets; aircraft inclinometers to indicate when the camper was leveled off; stiff springs; and an over-the-cab bunk.

    Source:  Popular Mechanics May 1967

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