Less a flying car than a driving airplane, the “Airphibian” was a plane/auto hybrid designed and built by Robert Fulton. In 1950, it became the first “roadable aircraft” to be certified by the FAA. Top speeds were 55 mph on the ground; a “sluggish” 110 mph aloft. While the prototypes logged some 200,000 miles between 1945 and 1952, the Airphibian shared a drawback common to flying-car technology: the weight of the auto parts weighed it down in the air.
