What's The Worst Flying Car Ever Made? The 1970s Flying Pinto, It Killed Its Own Creators

People were dreaming of flying cars for a very long time and it’s been decades since they started making efforts to live the dream. Though you may have seen various models and prototypes of flying cars, you may haven’t heard of an idea dated back in 1973 when two guys tried combining the Ford Pinto car with a plane. And it looks stupid, making it probably the worst idea ever for a flying car.

The worst thing about this idea is that Horald Blake and Henry A. Smolinski, the guys behind the idea, both died testing their flying pinto. They founded a company named Advanced Vehicle Engineers, or AVE, in 1968. The paired built a flying car, dubbed AVE Mizar, with high hopes that they could pass-produce it. However, now-called Flying Pinto never made it through the testing phase.

Even before it had wings, the Ford Pinto wasn’t known as a safe vehicle. The Ford Pinto was a tiny automobile was introduced in 1971 when the gas price was so high and there was a serious shortage of gas.

In the 70s, the Ford Pinto was infamous for bursting into flames when drives got rear-ended. Some even died from such incidents. Ford itself was sued 117 times with accusations relating to safety concerns around its Pinto car.

However, those lawsuits didn’t happen before the creation of the Flying Pinto. In 1970, Blake and Smolinski had a press conference for their plan announcement, but at the time, they hadn’t made the decision about what car to convert. They just knew they wanted a literal hybrid flying car by simply fitting a Cessna plan rear engine and wings to a normal car. Smolinski said at the time:

“Our plan is to make the operation so simple that a woman can easily put the two systems together—or separate them—without help.”

Over the next two years, they worked on their designs and finalized with the Pinto and wanted to test their creation. They successfully got the vehicle to take off on multiple occasions, some newspapers even said their flying car could kick off a revolution in transportation.

Then in 1973, a tragedy happened. The pair took the Flying Pinto to Ventura County Airport, where they were supposed to tell the manager there anytime they were testing on the site, but they didn’t that day. They did get the flying car to take off but shortly after that, there was black smoke emanating from the vehicle. The men were in the air for just two minutes then one of the wings began to come off. Eventually, the plane crashed and they died.

In 1978, Ford pulled its Pinto car. And their adventures remained a blurred memory among other tragic failed inventors who died from their own inventions. Anyway, you can still watch the Flying Pinto in action in this video.

>>> The Smallest Flying Car In The World With A Drone Design