It isn’t everyday that I drag my wife through my jaunts down the rabbit hole on YouTube where cars are concerned, but during dinner last night, I could not avoid playing this particular video of the 1967 Gyro-X concept vehicle. Her reactions to seeing a car sitting on two wheels as if nothing is wrong with that scene whatsoever is enough, but to see people pushing and pulling the car and seeing it not tip over is the best…lots of question ensued. The short story goes like this: built as a possible future design, Gyro Transport Systems, Inc. went all-in on creating a potential solution for personal transportation by mating up the engine from a Mini Cooper S with a 22-inch hydraulically driven gyroscope that would keep everything right-side up. Aerodynamically sleek, considered more efficient than a larger, four-wheeled machine, and claimed to be able to hit 125 miles per hour via the 80 horsepower of the Mini-sourced mill, the Gyro-X captured imaginations, but during testing it was reported that above 70 miles per hour, the machine became unstable and by 1970 Gyro Transport Systems was done. This car bounced around for a bit, was converted into a three-wheeler at one point and ultimately was restored by and is now kept at the Lane Automotive Museum (hence, the Tennessee plate in a video from Italy.)

But here’s the thought: a gyroscope and a small engine in 1967 created a two-wheeled vehicle that functioned. 1967 is still the land of paper, slide rules, clay models and the like. Imagine if the same idea was put through the design and technology of today. Given the current trend of reinventing driving altogether, do you think that ideas like the Gyro-X are even possible? We’ve made “hoverboards”, Segways, Teslas that can do some semblance of auto-driving, and we’re constantly coming up with new and inventive ways to mess with the machine. What do you think…is there a chance something like the Gyro-X could be adapted to modern times? Could the wheel be reinvented once more before it’s replaced with a transport pod?