Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Jun 24, 2020 20:22:38 GMT
I find these interesting, you know some big, prestige project which turns out to be useless. In motors, the best example was probably the Edsel in the USA, which cost Ford about $300 million in the two years that the marketing fiasco lasted. It had all sorts if technical problems with a push button gear change in the steering wheel hub and it had a strangely shaped grille which was described as looking rude!
Aviation produced quite a few, the Bristol Brabazon was one, a huge airliner with eight propeller engines which was intended for trans Atlantic travel but, despite the fact that it was about the size of a Jumbo Jet, could only carry a small number of passengers. It was also slow and by the time it was ready to go into production the Boeing 707 was flying. Only one was built and it went for scrap in 1953.
On the railways, there was the Leader class loco, built by the Southern railway just at the time of nationalisation in 1948/9. This had sleeve valves, which gave trouble in their only other applications in aircraft engines and some high end cars, like Daimler's, so why they were tried on a steam loco is not clear. It was 30 tons overweight and one was completed and ran a few trials, a second was nearly finished, three more were in an advanced state, but all of them went for scrap after two years
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Jun 24, 2020 21:57:41 GMT
This has got to be one of the worlds biggest failures :
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Jun 24, 2020 22:08:29 GMT
The R101 was a similar (British) design which went the same way a few years earlier
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Jun 24, 2020 22:27:53 GMT
I'd not heard of this one but there's footage here:
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The Saint
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Swinging London - 1967
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Post by The Saint on Jun 25, 2020 10:06:11 GMT
The Sinclair C5 was another failure.
The Saint
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Post by Steve Austin on Jun 25, 2020 10:34:21 GMT
HS2 hasn't started construction yet but it's got that whiff of failure about it. Certainly qualifies as a white elephant.
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Post by Dirty Epic on Jun 25, 2020 10:48:57 GMT
Does the Millennium Dome count here?
Only really began to work around there when it became the O2 Arena and a concert venue... not really what the original idea for this was about?
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Post by D.C. Burtonshaw on Jun 25, 2020 16:24:02 GMT
Yes there was Hughes H-4 Hercules prototype Flying Boat made by Howard Hughes company in 1947 and only ever flew once November 2nd that year with Hughes himself at the controls. It was never ready in time for WW2. Just the one plane was built which still survives in an Aviation and Space museum in America. Apparently made entirely out of birch but there were concerns about its weight.
Another aircraft was the BAC TSR -2 of which only one ever made a maiden flight in 1964, then production was scrapped in 1965 due to a government decision and ever rising costs of the project, and in favour of the F111 fighter. The only plane to fly was believed scrapped along with 7 others that never did and the 2 survivors that were fully built remain, one in the RAF Duxford museum and the other at the RAF Cosford museum.
And then of course there were a couple more cars;
The Delorean anyone? It is estimated that 8,975 of these extensively designed Gull wing doored dream cars from an idea by ex GM executive John De Lorean were made, but the engineering was carried out with help from Lotus and financing to the tune of $120 million from the UK government as part of a plan to create a new factory in Northern Ireland to build it. But lacklustre sales in the US, the wrong sort of car for that country, and an economic downturn at the time all didn't help along with a number of other things, and production only lasted 2 years Dec 1980 to Dec 1982 by which time the receivers had agreed the remaining unfinished cars could be completed.
The AMC Pacer - maybe not as much as a flop as the Delorean but also had controversial styling with the idea that it was supposed to be more space efficient and economical. Sales fell year after year, after the first year and secondhand values in its country of the USA weren't great. Also different length doors on both sides were meant so that passenger could step out easily on the the kerb from the passengers side, but that was not convenient in Right hand drive markets like the UK where one firm offered right hand drive conversions. British magazines like Motor weren't too impressed. The car lingered for 5 years from 1975 - 80 with a bigger estate version improving the practicality a bit and didn't look quite as bad.
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Post by Sam Tyler on Jun 25, 2020 22:08:23 GMT
I'd also thought of the Hughes H-4 earlier but Gerry pipped me to it.
The other white elephant I can think of was the Russian Ekranoplan. It looked like a sea plane but with much shorter wings which 'flew' above the water thanks to the ground effect rather than the lift characteristics of the wing profile. I think that only one was ever made but it was a huge vehicle with eight engines that could only 'fly' up to 300mph at only about four metres above the surface of the water. A handful of smaller Ekranoplans were made but were soon phased out:
Sam.
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Jun 25, 2020 22:24:55 GMT
Who can forget the infamous ATP project which just needed tweaking but the plug was pulled and it was scrapped Fwd 20 years and we buy the technology we invented in this project from from abroad (Pendolinos) Good old B.R
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