1957 STUDEBAKER-PACKARD, Astral, Form of Power: Atomic

This full-size mockup was constructed to suggest how an atomic-powered vehicle might actually be packaged. A gyroscopic balancing mechanism was to have enabled it to rest on one centrally located wheel although it would also have been able to hover at low altitudes over land or water. A “protective curtain of energy” around the vehicle would have reportedly made collisions impossible. Since nuclear reactors were difficult to engineer, extremely expensive, and dangerous to handle, just two full-size atomic-powered vehicles were ever built, this car and the French Symmetric, but neither was actually fitted with an atomic power system.

Collection of Studebaker National Museum, South Bend, Indiana