Dymaxion
Dymaxion car (1933)

Why it matters

The Dymaxion car was Buckminster Fuller's attempt to rethink the automobile as a streamlined, front-wheel-drive, rear-steered three-wheeler. Only three cars were built and the project ended after 1934, but the design remains one of the best-known experimental cars of the 1930s.

How rare is it?

Six separate kinds of rarity – never combined into one number.

Each kind of rarity is rated separately and never combined.

Photos

Exterior, interior and detail photos with their licences.

• Dymaxion Dymaxion car (1933) (Wikimedia Commons search)
  Photo: Zandcee · CC BY-SA 4.0
• Dymaxion Dymaxion car (1933) (Wikimedia Commons search)
  Photo: Kuroczynski · CC BY-SA 4.0

Production

Every figure says what it counts.

Independent counts (e.g. engine and colour) are never combined into a calculated figure. Surviving examples are never presented as original production.

History

Fuller engaged the yacht designer Starling Burgess, and the cars were built in the former Locomobile factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The first car was built in roughly six to eight months, according to the Lane Motor Museum.

On 27 October 1933 the first car was involved in a fatal accident outside the Chicago World's Fair grounds. The accident was widely blamed on the design and some potential investors withdrew. The project stopped soon afterwards; Fuller later said the next car would have used front steering had funds not run out.

The first car was later destroyed by fire, the second survives in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada, and the third was reportedly scrapped in the 1950s.

Technical specifications

Engine

Transmission & drivetrain

Chassis, body & dimensions

Performance

“Not yet verified” means no source has been checked for that value yet. Nothing is estimated to fill a gap.

Sources

Each number links to the exact facts it supports.

1. 1
   Dymaxion blueprints discovered in attic, going up for auction Level C Hemmings Blog

   • the second, the only Dymaxion extant

   Accessed 2026-11-13
2. 2
   Dymaxion blueprints discovered in attic going up for auction Level C Hemmings Blog · 2013-05-20

   • Ford flathead-powered rear-engine three-wheeler
   • front-wheel-drive Ford flathead-powered rear-engine three-wheeler

   Accessed 2026-11-13
3. 3
   Maximum Dynamism! Jeff Lane's Fuller Dymaxion Replica Captures Insane Cool of the Originals Level C Davey G. Johnson · Car and Driver · 2015-03-18

   • Power comes courtesy of a 1933 Ford flathead V-8.
   • driven by the front axle and steered via the rear wheel

   Accessed 2026-11-13