George Albright of Ocala, Florida has sent us photos of some of the unusual cars he's bought in the past. He recently bought this, well, vehicle with only the vaguest notion of its identity.

Supposedly, it was built around 1950 at the Grumman factory in Wichita, Kansas. The steel birdcage-type construction is typical of aircraft construction and the wheels were taken from aircraft landing gear, but the engine is an air-cooled Onan two-cylinder, which drives the front wheels only through a pair of three-speed motorcycle transmissions, possibly Harley-Davidson or Indian.

While it certainly looks similar to some of the flying car concepts that abounded at that time – particularly Molt Taylor's Aerocar – it is definitely not an Aerocar, and we doubt that this was even designed as anything but a roadable car, given the lack of attachment points or bracing structures for wings. Rather, this appears to be a prototype or one-off design for an economical front-wheel-drive automobile.

Aside from aircraft, Grumman did indeed build vehicles meant for ground transportation – and still does today. But so far we haven't seen anything that references Grumman building a front-wheel-drive automobile at that time. Have you?

Read the Whole Article