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Design

Could We Have Commercial Flying Cars By 2014?

Now all we need is the jet packs, food pills, and all the other stuff we were promised.

That’s the thing with the future—if you wait around long enough, those retro-futurist ideas that have populated our imaginations for so long will finally come true.

So it was with e-paper, and now comes the flying car, which has been associated with our cliched visions of the future since, well, since the advent of the regular car. Now, Dutch company PAL-V has made those dreams a reality with the PAL-V One (Personal Air and Land Vehicle).

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On terra firma you’ll essentially be driving a sports car (albeit one that looks a bit like a helicopter), but once you activate the rotor and the tail comes out, then it’ll be skyward bound using the latest gyrocopter technology. And while the naysayers may say “But what about the laws of the land (and sky)!” the company claims it’s all legit and “within existing international rules for both flying and driving.”

Nice view

Before you get too excited about flying around amongst the skyscrapers, the car is only in the prototype stage, but they’re aiming to get to work on the commercial version, of which they expect the first deliveries to be available in 2014. So start saving. It should be right about the time jet packs, hoverboards, Mars colonies, underwater cities, and that space elevator will be ready. Probably.

Check out the video above to see its maiden flight—which has already racked up nearly a million views on YouTube since its debut on, worryingly, April 1st.

@stewart23rd