TRANSPORTATION
This Bizarre Taxi of the Future Was Supposed to Fit So Many People

Matt Novak
Today 10:10am Filed to: CLOSER THAN WE THINK



The August 31, 1958 edition of the newspaper comic Closer Than We Think
Illustration: Arthur Radebaugh

Futuristic headlines here in the year 2018 might make you ask “why?” But back in the 1950s, illustrators in Detroit were asking “why not?” And perhaps nothing demonstrates that thinking better than this comic strip from 1958 by Arthur Radebaugh.

The design of this taxi for the future is patently absurd. It has room enough to seat six passengers comfortably but appears to look like a tank. The taxi driver is perched up top so that they can see over the other cars ahead, not unlike Radebaugh’s vision for cop cars in 1958.

Here is the text that accompanied this comic from the August 31, 1958 edition of Closer Than We Think in newspapers around the country:

Here’s a startling concept for the taxicab of tomorrow—a vehicle of enlarged seating capacity and great maneuverability, designed to allow the driver to move more easily through heavy traffic.

The diamond-shape arrangement of the wheels would put the driving wheels at the center and the steering wheel at front, so that the vehicle could swing around on its own length. The driver would sit a level above his passengers, as in the hansom cabs of old, permitting him to look over other cars into the traffic ahead. This particular model would conveniently seat six passengers, with plenty of room for getting in and out—a feature greatly valued by driver and patron alike.

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