Visions

The Dymaxion Dream Reincarnate

By Cynthia G. Wagner

Volkswagen showcases the “purposeful aesthetics” of earth-friendly design.

One could not help but smile when Volkswagen introduced its trim little concept car, the L1, at the 2009 auto show in Frankfurt. Smile, with nostalgia for futures past … and for visionary inventor R. Buckminster Fuller.

The future is, and has been for some time, streamlined.

In a description strongly reminiscent of that for the Dymaxion car, which Fuller designed and built in the 1930s, VW outlines its philosophy for the latest car of the future in a press package:

In developing both prototype generations of the L1, Volkswagen simply questioned everything that typically characterised an automobile. The key starting point was body construction, and a core question was raised here: How would a car have to look and be built to consume as little energy as possible? The logical answer: extremely aerodynamic and lightweight.

Thus, aerodynamically designed and built with lightweight materials, the 838-pound, one-liter vehicle (with a fuel economy of 240 mpg) may be on the market by 2013 — realizing a vision for efficient transportation that’s more than 75 years old.

Is this the reincarnation of Fuller’s Dymaxion Car we see before us? The new vehicle is at least a worthy descendent, bearing traces of its ancestor’s noble silhouette.

VW’s L1 is far smaller than Fuller’s Dymaxion car, with room for just two passengers (one sitting behind the other), while Fuller’s vision accommodated a larger American family of up to 10 passengers.

Fuller’s Dymaxion concept extended beyond vehicle design to housing and even global mapping. As the Buckminster Fuller Institute defines it, Dymaxion (dynamic maximum tension) was an engineering concept built on “the idea that rational action in a rational world demands the most efficient overall performance per unit of input. [Fuller’s] Dymaxion structures, then are those that yield the greatest possible efficiency in terms of available technology.”

The principles of energy efficiency are the legacy that VW has inherited from Bucky Fuller, affectionately known as Earth’s friendly genius. But Walter de Silva, head of design for the Volkswagen Group, emphasizes the L1’s more modern appeal — its “purposeful aesthetics” — as a feature no less significant to the car-buying public and, hence, to the future of personal transportation.

About the Author

Cynthia G. Wagner is managing editor of THE FUTURIST.

For more information about Volkswagen AG, visit www.volkswagenag.com. For a review of the L1, see “VW’s One-Liter Car Is Finally On Its Way” by Jens Meiners, Car and Driver (September 2009).

For more about R. Buckminster Fuller, visit Buckminster Fuller Institute, www.bfi.org.

ALL DYMAXION CAR IMAGES: WFS FILE PHOTOS, PUBLISHED IN “CRITICAL PATH TO AN ALL-WIN WORLD: BUCKY FULLER DESIGNS THE NEW AGE” BY BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, THE FUTURIST, JUNE 1981.