Saturday, June 13, 2015

Dream Cars 3

Sometimes credited as "the world's first minivan", the Stout Scarab was designed by William Bushnell Stout after he'd met and interviewed Buckminster Fuller at an auto show and written an article for the Society of Automotive Engineers newsletter about Fuller's Dymaxion car.

Envisioned by its designer as a sort of "mobile office", the second-row seating in the spacious Scarab could swivel and face the rear, and there was a stowable table between the rows.

Thanks to unibody construction and a rear-mounted Ford V-8, the floor of the Scarab's  passenger compartment was low and flat. Check out the stylized Egyptian scarab motif on the snout.

Stout's vehicle never saw series production, with only a handful of examples built. Five are alleged to survive today.
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