Whatever happened to....?

Do you ever wonder what ever happened to the 'next big thing' of yesteryear? Like that swish new Caddy your neighbour had back in the 50's?
Well the picture above gives a clue to what happened to most of them, a real shame too!

But what about those other things? Vague memories from childhood, something that you once remember reading about but can't quite recall where?
If like me you are a fan of those old 50's magazines that used to predict the engineering or scientific advances likely to be around 'in the future', then you may be familiar with the theory of water powered cars.
Today more than ever we need to look at alternative sources of fuel for our vehicles, not only from the ecological point of view, but also to help lessen the dependence we have on the middle eastern nations for our energy.

There has been some sort of urban myth spread for many decades based around the supposed guy that invented a car that would run on water, only to have the big oil companies buy up the idea and bury it to keep the oil business booming. While looking through those old mags once more I came across the item above.... so what did happen to it?


Next up, from December 1930 was this, the largest Studebaker in the world! Now considering you would need more than the average garage to house this beauty, and it's not the type of thing that could be tucked away and forgotten about (unless you have a very large house!) then this thing should still be out there.... anyone seen it?


Some of the new ideas turned out to be a hit, the one above first appeared in November 1933, and the notion that cars should have warning devices when turning became standard fittings sometime later.


The item above I remember fondly - because I had that very cover in blue on my bed as a kid! I wonder where that went?
Looking back through those old magazines is like looking back on man's optimism, there are jet packs and flying cars, ingenious gadgets invented for virtually every purpose both in the home and in the car. I have to admit that many of these 'predictions' for the future never happened, perhaps because along came a world war which took away many of the designers of that hopeful future.
Y'know what? Not all those inventions would have caught on, maybe I'm being unkind but I just couldn't see these anti-glare glasses going down a storm! :-)