UselessThe French TVR
Nancy and Caen, 2000–2023
A tram on rubber tyres that could leave its rail and drive off like a bus. Passengers liked it. The guide rail had other ideas.
Department of great ideas
The Oops Department
Some ideas are brilliant. Some are brilliant right up until Tuesday. Useless keeps the files on both kinds here: real inventions, real people, and what actually happened next.
A department for ideas that went “oops”
Useless was put in charge of the Oops Department because he was the only one not busy. Each file is a short, friendly retelling of a real idea that didn’t go quite to plan: long enough to enjoy, short enough to finish before the kettle boils, and true enough to repeat at dinner.
Every file follows the same six-part recipe: the great idea, what actually happened, where it went wrong, what changed, the Useless Verdict, and a link to the serious article elsewhere on the REALLYBYTE network, which links back here. Nothing is made up, and where the sources disagree, the file says so.
The jokes are aimed at questionable decisions, never at the victims of accidents. Most of the people involved were far cleverer than Useless, which admittedly isn’t hard.
Forgotten machines: eight files so far
The Gyro-X
California, 1967
A car on two wheels, held upright by a spinning flywheel. It was promoted as doing 125 mph. It did not do 125 mph.
The Ford Nucleon
Dearborn, 1958
Ford’s atomic car of the future, with a little reactor in the back. It stayed a non-working 3/8-scale model, which was probably for the best.
The Dymaxion car
Bridgeport and Chicago, 1933
Buckminster Fuller’s streamlined, three-wheeled car of the future. A brilliant shape, a fatal crash, and a story Fuller told his own way.
The Chrysler Turbine Car
USA, 1963–1966
Gas-turbine cars lent free to American drivers for three months at a time. It ran on almost anything. Did it run on perfume? Nobody can say.
The DAF Variomatic
The Netherlands, 1958
A small Dutch car with rubber belts instead of gears, which in theory went as fast backwards as forwards. So people raced them backwards.
The Sinclair C5
Britain, 1985
An electric tricycle for £399 that you could drive without a licence, launched in a British January. The battery did not enjoy January.
The Amphicar 770
Germany, 1961–1968
A convertible that could drive into a lake and carry on as a boat. Afloat, the brakes did nothing at all, which one president found very funny.
More files are on the way. Some of the next stories need a proper factual home first, so they’ll arrive once those homes are built.
The Oops Department runs on no budget whatsoever. If you enjoyed it, you can support REALLYBYTE, or have a look round Useless’s shop.