Category: Automobile History

• Dymaxion Car Sabotage

  The Dymaxion Car Sabotage theory held that Buckminster Fuller’s three-wheeled Dymaxion was not merely an eccentric prototype undone by handling problems and bad luck, but a deliberately suppressed threat to the conventional automobile industry. In its strongest form, the 1933 crash that killed driver Francis T. Turner and the subsequent withdrawal of investors were interpreted as coordinated sabotage by the Big Three or their allies. The historical basis made the rumor unusually durable: the car was genuinely radical in layout, aerodynamics, and efficiency, the crash did occur in public view, and financing evaporated soon afterward. The conspiracy version turned technological fragility into industrial attack.