Retro futures make a fascinating study - all those amazing ideas that never saw the light of day, and others that became so changed as to be almost unrecognizable.
And it’s interesting too, to see what subjects exercised thinkers; ideas rarely arrive singly, instead fresh takes from different creators get outlined, and the best one usually wins. However, in the real world other factors (such as marketing skills) may outweigh technical merits, examples including VHS vs Betamax, 8-track vs Compact Cassette, or Mac vs PC.
Even so, some concepts are just so plain weird or impracticable that any number of designs won’t change the way things already are, and here’s the monowheel to prove the point. Magazines from before World War II were forever featuring strange giant-wheel machines, as if they were ready to kill the standard automobile dead. But sometimes an idea alone is not enough to change the world, as these retro offerings show.
Mind you, designers are still at it - the bottom picture (actually a bi-wheel not a pure mono) was conceived only recently. Will it be a future winner? The Starcruzer crew reckons it looks cute, but isn’t placing any bets on success.
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