Fantasy technolgy in cars
This post is going to be slightly offbeat from the regular tech stuff I write. But not very much so, since I am listing out some fantasy cars with fantasy technology, which we have seen in the movies. Cars which make us go ‘Gawd, I wish I had that in my car’.
Speed Racer Mach 5
The movie was rank silly up to the first half and things got better only when the Mach 5 was tweaked to have some really cool stuff like auto jacks to jump over obtrusion’s, tyre shredders to shred the effetes who gave trouble, a bullet proof canopy which also doubled up to make the car a submarine. Who cares for the Bandra-Worli sealink? We’ll take the sea, thank you very much.
The Batman Tumbler
At first sight it did look a bit like a heap of scrap put together by a kindergarten kid, but attention to the movie revealed that it was all made out of military grade bullet proof metal (I still suspect it was put together by a KG kid). But, who cares? It was big, imposing and had rocket boosters. So, there.
P.S. 4 real life models were made. All were caught doing excessive speeds and one was crashed. Life.
Flubber Mobile
Flying cars are always going to be elusive to the man on the street and till the time that happens, let movies like Flubber fuel our imagination. Who wouldn’t want a little green ball of sticky goo, which when put in the car could propel us right into the sky. You could finally reach office in time or make a nifty mid-air date right above the Arabian Sea. Don’t call me when the fuels over though.
Aston Martin DB5
This was the car that made tech-savvy geeks want to go and watch the Bond movies. I don’t really know about their interest in the Bond girls, but the car had a lot going for it when it was driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger. Enough for said geeks to wet their pants.
Smoke screens, oil slicks, revolving license plates, machine guns (it was cool in 1964, still is), ejector seats, et al. It had everything imaginable to confound the law and then some. It probably spurned the creation of hundreds of other super cars “inspired” by it.
De Lorean DMC 12
By the time the car reached the movie, Back to the Future, the company, De Lorean had already filed for bankruptcy. Pity, cause it was more famous than the movie itself. The wedge shaped car became a time machine in the movie, thanks to one Dr. Emmett L. Brown and sped to the future at just 140kmph. I’d love to sit in one and see how what Page Rank this blog has in the future.
This article was originally written for JAM Magazine, issue dated 1st June to 15th June.
