Ford Nucleon: Back to the future?

With so much attention focused on alternative energy these days, non-fossil fuel proposals for cars have run a wide gamut. Even the once-verboten subject of a nuclear-powered automobile has arisen with increasing frequency.

Usually absent from these discussions, however, is the history of designs for such vehicles that came off drawing boards in Detroit throughout the 1950s at the height of the Atomic Age. This post on Damn Interesting, for example, reminds us that such models as the Ford Nucleon were once seriously considered as the automobiles of the future.

In retrospect, perhaps Ford's ideas weren't so far-fetched after all.