- [Henry] Did you know that there was a time
when the most dangerous car on the road
became the most dangerous car in the air?
- As long as you don't get rear-ended in the sky,
what could be more convenient?
- Do you remember when you could play with fire
while doing 80?
- 1800 degrees, that is hotter than lava,
and that is right there in your dashboard.
- Or when having three wheels was a true triple threat?
- The whole thing fell on me and broke two ribs right here.
But they look so cool, man.
- These are the things we used to do
for fun,
for money,
or maybe out of boredom
that we'll never see again.
Were they dangerous?
Certainly.
Deadly?
Occasionally.
But boy, wasn't it exciting.
[intense music]
[curious music]
- [Henry] Remember when the best seat of the car
was the one facing backwards
in the way, way back of the family station wagon?
You were blissfully unsupervised, unbuckled,
and as it turns out, completely unsafe.
- Right after World War II,
America goes through a baby boom.
It is the biggest population surge ever.
- The cars at the time were just not built for families.
They were built for couples at best, maybe with one kid.
- [Natalia] There are toddlers in the front seat,
their baby's on mom's lap.
There are a few kids in the back
crawling all over each other.
- There's no rules
about how many kids you shove into your car.
Really what you do is you just start
to pack them in like sardines,
and automakers realize they need to have a larger car
to serve large families.
- [Jason] So what they come up with takes its name
from the old wood wagons
that used to take people to and from the train stations,
and they end up calling this,
the station wagon.
- [Natalia] It even has fake wood paneling on the sides
to evoke those old wooden wagons.
- At first, the station wagon was just roomier.
But in 1957, the automakers have a eureka moment.
- [Natalia] Sure, it can hold five or six people now,
but they realize that with a little more ingenuity,
you can cram even more people into the car.
- [Jason] Auto manufacturers realized
that the sloping curve of the car's rear
actually has enough leg room and head room
for another row of seats,
but only if they turn those seats backwards.
- [Henry] Parents like the third row
because they can stash more kids back there
where they can't be seen or heard.
- [Jason] Your parents would fold the seat down and you'd
jump in,
unless you were a little too enthusiastic and you'd jump in
and the seat would get folded down on you.
That was just a normal day in the life.
- A lot of times we didn't use the back door,
you would just climb over the seat,
so it felt like a little bit of an adventure
just to get back there.
- [Jason] The back area of the station wagon
was a bit like the wild west.
You were away from any kind of parental oversight.
- [Hakeem] To a kid, it's not the rear-facing third row,
it's the way, way back,
and it's the coolest place to be in the car.
- [Rutledge] Now, yes, you were moving backwards,
so some kids, they would get car sick.
They weren't cut out for that life,
and I feel terrible for them.
- [Hakeem] Eventually, station wagons are so popular
that they are one out of every 10 cars
sold in the United States.
- [Natalia] In the movies of the '70s and '80s,
the station wagon is the iconic family vehicle.
"National Lampoon's Vacation" is the ultimate example
of the family trip in the station wagon.
- [Henry] In the way back,
kids have a great view out the back windshield,
and a front row seat to the dangers that lurk from behind.
- [Jason] Starting in the 1960s,
regulators start cracking down on automotive safety,
but most of the focus is on the welfare of the driver.
- If you look at the innovations
that were happening in the automotive industry,
seat belts, airbags, all of this different technology,
nothing was being thought of for the back.
- [Lance] The way that cars are built,
especially if you're gonna get hit from behind,
is that the back is going to crumple,
and that's to absorb the energy of the impact
so it doesn't affect the front of the car.
- [Jason] The federal government doesn't run a single
crash test for third row safety,
nor do they require automakers to run any of those tests.
- [Hakeem] No testing.
This is where the car makers
are telling people to put their kids,
and it's not like getting rear-ended is rare.
It happens all the time.
And it's the type of crash
that is hardest for the driver to avoid.
- Cars were basically rolling playgrounds.
We didn't wear seat belts. Nobody did at the time.
- [Natalia] Not only are kids in the potential crumple zone,
they're not strapped in, in any way that'll protect them
in the case of an accident.
- [Rutledge] If you got hit from behind,
a lot of times it was just launching the kids
that were back there at like 15 or 20 miles an hour.
It's like getting thrown out of a second-storey window.
- So it's possible for the kids in the backseat of that car
to get completely pancaked if they get in an accident
and the back end actually does crumble.
- [Henry] But it's not safety concerns
that does the station wagon in.
- [Lance] By the late 1970s, fuel standards make it more
expensive for automakers to make station wagons,
and so for purely economic reasons,
they shift focus from station wagons
to a cheaper and less regulated minivans and trucks.
- [Jason] Instead of trying to improve the station wagon,
they just really turned all their focus
toward the minivan and the SUVs that followed
to make those cars as safe as they can be
and to make them the modern safe equivalent
of the classic station wagon.
- [Natalia] Now, they don't really exist
and my kids do not wanna be in the third row.
But to them, it's just the third row
because it's forward-facing, less leg space.
Nothing cool about it.
- It was a happier car trip back then, truly.
- Squeezing too many people into cars
used to be totally normal.
And back in the 1920s,
automakers came up with another innovation
that turned the back of the car into the most thrilling
and bone rattling seat in the joint.
- By the roaring '20s,
cars have gone from curiosity to mainstream transportation.
And for a lot of young people with money,
that car is a coupe.
- The coupe is sleek, it's fast, it's zippy,
it's everything that you want.
But the problem with one of those
is there's only two or three seats
on the bench in the front.
What if you wanna take your pals?
What if you want to go on a double date?
You're gonna need more room.
- [Don] But in the 1920s,
coupes come with a little bit of a secret.
When you walk around the back, you pull a handle,
and suddenly, two extra seats appear.
- [Austin] It's genius when it's just you and your sweetheart,
the car looks sleek and low.
But when you got your buddies with you,
you open it up and boom!
Extra seating.
- Sitting in the seat could be a whole lot of fun.
You feel every bump, the wind in your hair.
- [Henry] The foldout seat starts as a luxury item.
But by 1929,
the best-selling Ford Model A, comes with one.
But that convenience comes with a compromise.
- These aren't exactly the most comfortable seats though.
The seat is right on top of the rear axle,
and it's the 1920s,
there's not exactly a lot of shock absorption.
- [Henry] All that jostling earns the a nickname,
the rumble seat.
But when your seat is basically outside the car,
a pain in the butt is the least of your problems.
- [Adam] Well, the rumble seat
isn't actually in the cockpit of the car at all.
It's sort of by the trunk.
It's outside, more or less.
- There are few, if any, speed limits or drunk driving laws.
It's anarchy out there.
Now, imagine that you're hurdling down a highway
at 57 miles an hour,
if the car crashes and you're in the rumble seat,
you're gonna get ejected. [tires screeching]
And if the car flips,
do the math. [car clatters]
That car is going to fall on top of you.
- [Adam] The rumble seat acquires a pretty funny
and slightly sardonic nickname, the mother-in-law seat.
"Oh, you want your mom to come with us?
Please allow her to sit in this open air,
death trap, 2 feet above the road
where she can be exposed to all the elements.
It's safe."
- [Henry] Grizzly newspaper headlines,
about rumble seat accidents, are very common,
but the automotive industry and the public
take them in stride.
- [Don] Despite all the well-known risks,
the rumble seat sticks around into the 1950s.
The classic 1957 Ford Thunderbird
actually has a flip up backseat
that's called the "Bird's Nest."
- [Austin] By the late '60s regulation
and just pure common sense catches up with us
and the rumble seat goes the way of the dodo.
- Some cars still feature fold-out seats today,
but they're inside the car.
- [Henry] Cars these days must pass inspections every year
to ensure that they're not spewing toxic emissions.
But that was not always the case.
In fact, there was a time
when the most polluted air in America
could be found right inside your automobile.
- In the mid 1950s,
Americans are united around smoking.
Nearly half of American adults smoke.
- [Brian] Everybody smokes.
It's a smoky land full of smoking people.
Everybody, at work, teachers, doctors.
I mean, everybody smokes.
- [Hakeem] As people spend more time in their cars,
eating burgers, going to drive-ins,
taking long road trips,
of course, they're smoking in their cars too,
and nobody wants to have to pull over
just to light up a cigarette.
- [Natalia] Ideally, what do you do?
You wanna reach for that convenient,
built-in cigarette lighter.
- [Hakeem] The first car lighters are luxury items,
and they're designed for cigars, not cigarettes.
That's why the size of it is much bigger than a cigarette.
- The way that this works
is you've got a socket with a knob sitting in it.
To engage the cigarette lighter,
you push in on the knob
that allows electricity to flow into it,
it allows the element inside to begin heating up.
- [Hakeem] After a few seconds of heating, the insert pops up,
and you touch the glowing orange end
to your cigar or cigarette, and that lights it up,
and you take a drag.
And it's so convenient that you can do it all with one hand
while keeping your other hand on the steering wheel.
- [Henry] By the 1950s,
cigarette lighters are a standard feature in all cars,
as common as windshield wipers, and radios.
- Light?
This lighter is always ready.
- [Lance] Cars are made for smoking.
There's gonna be an ashtray either in your dash
or it's gonna be in your door.
And the car was really built
so that you could smoke and drive.
They understood the connection between the two.
- [Brian] As a kid, I would just sit there and press it
and let it pop out.
And then I'd get fascinated and I'd look at it
'cause the little coils inside would get red hot
and I'd watch it cool from red to...
It was like a little science experiment in my car.
- [Henry] Although it's convenient,
the cigarette lighter does have a downside.
- [Hakeem] What's crazy, is how the lighter
is actually much hotter than it needs to be.
You only need 600 degrees to light a cigarette.
But the car makers want to make sure
that it likes your cigarette fast
and consistently every time.
- [Lance] That's gonna heat up to a ridiculous temperature,
1800 degrees.
That is hotter than lava,
and that is right there in your dashboard.
- [Natalia] Some parents,
before the days of seat belts and car seats,
wanted their kid right next to them
to keep an eye on them.
- [Martin] I was not just allowed to play with the
cigarette lighter, but I was encouraged to play with it
because it was the babysitter.
The way that parents might use an iPad today
to sort of occupy the child during a long, boring car trip,
I was told, "Hey, play with the cigarette lighter."
- [Brian] I do remember the time I was like,
"Well, how hot can it be?"
And I touched it with my hand and oh, the sizzle, the burn!
I remember the white dot on my fingerprint
and just crying and crying and crying.
You know, these are lessons that you have to learn.
- [Henry] Pediatricians of the era,
learn to recognize the telltale coil-shaped burns
of the car cigarette lighter.
- [Lance] It's bizarre.
The little handheld butane lighter,
that by law, has to have child protection.
But this 1800-degree lighter in the car, no rules.
No rules.
- [Henry] Car makers eventually stomp out
the dashboard cigarette lighter,
but it's not because they are forced to.
- [Natalia] By the late '90s, much fewer people are smoking.
So that little socket still exists in a lot of cars,
but it's really used for small appliances,
not for cigarette lighters.
- I still drive a car that has a cigarette lighter in it,
and I'm not a smoker.
Because there's something to it on a survival basis
where I'm just like, "One day I might need fire."
It's almost like a Swiss Army Boy Scout thing
where I'm just like, "I have fire here in my car."
- When you buy a car,
you expect it to come with certain basic features,
headlights, rear-view mirrors, a windshield.
But believe it or not, in the early days of automobiles,
none of those were standard,
not even windshields.
- [Adam] Originally,
cars were a little more than sort of like a fuselage,
an engine tires,
maybe some fenders and some seats.
People used to have to wear driving caps, driving gloves,
and driving goggles.
- The early cars of the late 1800s
were exposed to every element.
You were exposed to wind, insects, rain,
everything that you can think of.
- [Don] By 1905, auto racing has led to a boom in engine power.
Now there are cars going 70 miles per hour
where they were topping out at 15 miles per hour,
just a decade before.
- [Nicole] Anything that hits you at 70 miles an hour
is going to really, really injure you.
- [Don] To solve this problem,
automakers basically take the idea of goggles
and put it on the car itself.
The windshield is born.
- [Henry] A simple pane of glass
fitted into the body of the car,
completely transforms driving.
- [Austin] People used to only drive in good weather.
Now, you've got an enclosed car with a windshield.
Older people can now drive year-round,
and poorer people can drive
without the aid of a professional driver
out there in the elements with the goggles on.
- [Henry] Windshields are so useful
that some automakers make them standard by 1915.
But while they help make driving more civilized,
they can also make it more dangerous.
- [Austin] These early windshields
are made of plate glass, window glass.
- [Don] If you've ever had a rock hit your windshield today,
it doesn't come through, it doesn't penetrate.
It just leaves this spiderweb looking hole.
Back then,
that rock could not only go through the windshield,
hit you in the head,
it could shatter the whole thing.
It's like a rock going through a window at home,
but you're driving at 70 miles per hour.
- [Adam] Things get really ugly.
There are no seat belts.
So in a head on collision,
people are flying headfirst with so much regularity,
that the glass windshield
ultimately gets the macabre nickname,
the glass necklace.
- [Henry] By 1925, there are 17 million cars on the road.
And more cars, mean more injuries,
most of which are caused by shattered glass.
- [Austin] Automakers invent the windshield to help
protect drivers.
But instead, as they shatter and burst,
they're driving up injuries and deaths.
- [Don] In 1927, automakers come up with a new type of
windshield, it sandwiches two panes of glass
around a thin layer of celluloid,
same plastic they use in movie film.
Automakers are so confident of this new product
that they call it, safety glass,
and they market it as shatterproof.
- [Austin] The problem with it being shatterproof,
is it's only shatterproof in one direction,
the impact side.
- [Don] It can stop a flying rock
from exploding the windshield from the outside.
But if you're a human head,
it's not strong enough to stop you from busting through
and giving you the glass necklace.
Also, the celluloid gets blurry and foggy with age,
preventing the windshield from doing its primary job,
which is allowing you to see the road clearly
so you don't crash.
- Finally, in 1937,
after a six year multi-million dollar collaboration
between the five largest chemical companies at that time,
they think they found a solution to windshield safety,
laminated glass.
- Laminated glass is created by sandwiching a clear resin
between two pieces of glass.
It now sticks together,
rendering the windshield pretty much shatterproof.
- [Adam] In fact, it proves such a good solution
that today, almost 90 years later,
even though we use different materials to do it,
we're still making windshields out of laminated glass.
- So the next time something hits your windshield,
be thankful it's keeping the bad stuff out
and the good stuff, like you and your family,
inside safely.
- [Henry] Car buyers can be tough to please,
and what they want is always changing.
But one thing that hasn't changed,
is a desire for your new car not to explode.
And for one car in the 1970s,
that was just a little too much to ask.
- [Jason] By the late '60s, American car manufacturers,
they're really starting to worry.
Gas prices are going up.
They're losing a generation of consumers
to these smaller foreign cars.
But Ford, all they're offering right now
are these heavy muscle cars,
and so they come up with a solution.
- [Don] In 1970, after two years of R&D,
when it normally takes twice as much time
to develop a new car,
Ford rolls out a new model
unlike anything they've ever made before.
- [Announcer] Pinto, the new little carefree car from Ford.
- [Jason] The Pinto is here to save Ford from the invasive
VW bug.
It's marketed as a low-cost, low-fuel American made car.
Everything about the Pinto
is designed to be easy on the wallet.
- Ford does a crazy amount of promoting for the Pinto.
They've got it in TV ads.
Henry Ford II
is driving it around everywhere through Detroit,
really, really building a brand.
- [Jason] This thing also,
is only half the weight of their normal cars,
which means it's gonna get better gas mileage.
It's also very affordable.
It's $2,000 brand new,
which is about $16,000 in today's money.
- [Henry] The affordable, fuel efficient Pinto
is the perfect car for the early '70s,
and 800,000 are sold in the first two years.
- [Don] In 1973, due to the oil crisis,
gas prices in America quadruple overnight,
and as a result, sales of Pintos skyrocket.
- [Henry] But the plucky Pinto,
also has a hot, little secret.
- [Nicole] Lily Gray is driving her Pinto in May of 1972,
and it kinda stalls out,
so she's trying to get out of the way and is rear-ended,
[cars thud]
and her car burst into flames.
- It should have just been a fender bender,
but on contact... [imitates explosion booms]
- [Jason] This is actually the first of many incidents
involving Pintos getting hit from behind
in low-speed impacts,
and bursting into flame like blow torches.
So people are thinking, "What's going on?
Something's not right here."
- [Negin] It turns out, because they wanted
to make the car small and light,
during the design phase,
the rear of the Pinto shrunk to far more than what's normal.
Shrinking any part of a car should be really done with care.
[intense music] [cars clattering]
- [Brian] The problem is the gas tank
was right next to the back bumper with
almost no protection.
- [Jason] So even in a fender bender,
sharp metal points ripped the gas tank open
like a can opener.
Fuels spills everywhere.
One spark, and it's like the 4th of July.
- [Henry] By the late 1970s,
over 100 lawsuits are filed
by victims of fiery Pinto crashes.
- [Negin] News story after news story
about these explosions come out,
and it becomes a national punchline.
It's in late night.
It's in cartoons.
- [Brian] It was kind of one of the first examples that I
remember of a nationwide joke.
But for something to gain
that level of notoriety and failure,
it had to really suck.
It became the standard bearer for what a flop was.
- [Jason] In 1978, 1.5 million Pintos are actually recalled.
Crazy thing is, like 1979, 1980,
they still sell almost 200,000 Pintos,
which goes to show you,
people are willing to maybe compromise on safety
if they can save a buck.
- The Pinto was a fireball waiting to happen,
but that wasn't the end of the story.
The Pinto saga went beyond road safety.
In fact, it went beyond roads entirely.
- [Martin] Henry Smolinski is an aeronautical engineer
living in California,
and in 1970, he has the idea of putting a flying car
in everyone's life.
- He doesn't wanna start building from the ground up.
So instead of creating a whole new flying car,
he kinda wants to put wings
on an existing mass-marketed vehicle.
- The vehicle that Smolinski chooses
for this vision of the future,
is the Ford Pinto.
- [Austin] He needs a car to take to the skies,
and the Ford Pinto is affordable,
and most of all, it's light.
It's less than 2,000 pounds.
- Smolinski's prototype
combines the wings and propeller of a Cessna Skymaster
with the body of a Ford Pinto.
He names his creation, the Mizar,
after a star in the Big Dipper constellation.
- [Austin] Who wouldn't want this?
As long as you don't get rear-ended in the sky,
what could be more convenient?
- [Henry] Before the Mizar has even been tested,
Smolinski has 35 pre sales.
Not bad for a Pinto with wings.
But the big question is, will the Mizar fly?
- [Martin] In August 1973, the test flight is conducted.
Smolinski's Mizar is being operated by a test pilot.
The vehicle gets to the appropriate takeoff speed.
The pilot pulls back on the control column,
and the Mizar rises to the air
and reaches an altitude of 120 feet.
- [Hakeem] Then that's where things go wrong.
That's when one of the struts holding the wing gives way.
And so the pilot has to make an emergency landing,
and he does so safely in a bean field.
- [Austin] Smolinski isn't giving up, he makes some tweaks.
He improves his experiment.
But this time, for the next test flight,
his pilot's not available.
So Smolinski figures, "I'll take the reins."
- [Henry] On a clear September morning in 1973,
Smolinski and his business partner take off for test two.
- [Martin] Smolinski gets the car in the air,
and everything seems to be going just fine.
He climbs to 400 feet.
And while he's at an altitude of 400 feet
under controlled flight,
the same wing strut fails.
- [Austin] Smolinski attempts to regain control, but it's
too late.
The Mizar plunges into the ground,
and he and his co-pilot are killed instantly.
- [Hakeem] An investigation later reveals
that even though they used a lightweight Pinto,
it was still way too heavy.
And the strut that broke on the first test,
was never properly repaired.
So with Smolinski's death,
the dream of the flying Pinto is gone.
- [Austin] You're wondering
if the notoriously exploding Pinto gas tank
had anything to do with the crash?
We'll never know, but it definitely couldn't have helped.
- The good news is the Jetsons takes place in the year 2062.
So we still have a few decades
to figure out how to build a better flying car.
- [Henry] For many drivers,
it's not enough just to get from point A to point B.
You wanna look good while doing it.
Well, in the early '60s,
an innovation came out that was so strange, so eye-catching,
it caused mayhem in the streets.
- [Jason] Cars in the '60s,
they're breaking all sorts of performance records.
Everything about them is better, stronger, faster,
and yet there is one part of the car
that seems to remain unchanged,
the humbled tire. [tires screeching]
- In 1961, Goodyear has this brilliant idea
that we would make a tire differently
than we ever made it before
with a a moldable plastic that's called, neothane.
And you can just inject it and create the shape of the tire.
- [Henry] And neothane
turns out to have a surprising upside.
- [Rutledge] What's so cool about neothane
is that you can actually dye it to be a different color,
which means you could have red tires or green tires.
And because it's a plastic,
you can actually illuminate it
by running a light on the inside of the tire
to make this thing glow.
I mean, that's so cool.
- Tires are literally
the most boring purchase I could possibly imagine.
So why not bedeck them with bright lights?
Seems like a great idea.
- [Negin] The '60s were a glamorous time in America.
Everything was colorful and design-focused,
so Americans were really going for it,
which is where this tire comes in.
- [Natalia] It kind of reminds me
of when those iMacs came out in the '90s,
and they were in every color of the rainbow,
it really had that kind of feel of technology
that's highly functional,
but being marketed as fashion.
- [Henry] While neothane tires sound great in theory,
things don't go so well
when the imitation rubber meets the road.
- [Jason] So, you know how the movies,
when the beautiful lead actress walks into a room
and the entire room stops and everybody turns to stare?
That's kinda what these tires are like.
- Pedestrians could stop in the middle of a crosswalk
just to ogle these bright tires.
Other motorists could drift into an intersection
'cause they're distracted.
Or a driver could be blinded
as these four sets of like brightened lights
whiz toward them on a dark night.
These are definitely eye-catching tires,
but they're also a menace.
- [Henry] Neothane tires grab attention,
but that's about the only thing they have a firm grip on.
- [Lance] Neothane is essentially just plastic.
- [Rutledge] It doesn't do great in rain.
That's a bit of an issue
for almost anyone that owns a vehicle.
- [Jason] If you start or stop quickly, that creates heat,
and it literally causes the tires to start melting.
Pretty soon, you're driving in for undercooked donuts.
- [Henry] Soon, the company realizes,
illuminated tires aren't the future after all,
and the product is shelved.
- I mean, look, today, if you wanna match your tires,
just wear black.
Biker dudes, they're always matching tires.
[engine revving]
- Dazzling tires turned out to be a bad look.
But the true jewel of a mid-century car
was the dashboard.
In the 1950s,
they were a blend of high tech and high style.
But sometimes the result wasn't so pretty.
- [Kavitha] Today, most dashboards are kinda boring.
They're mostly black foam and purely functional.
But in the 1950s, they are command central.
- [Natalia] There's knobs for raising the antennas.
There's knobs for fuel.
You know, there's knobs for your radio.
There's shifters on the dash back then.
So, there's literally a knob for everything.
- A car is physical, a car is buttons, a car chrome,
dashboard was your instrument pal.
This was your domain and it was gorgeous.
Ah, it was the best.
It's a lost American art.
- [Austin] Some automakers utilize the dashboard
for some pretty, over the top concepts.
One car maker makes the Highway Hi-Fi,
take a record player on the road.
- In the 1950s, one company even sells a coffee maker
for a Volkswagen Beetle,
pouring yourself a nice cup of coffee
with a hot plate by your side
while speeding down the highway.
This is not gonna end well.
- [Austin] Another automaker takes advantage
of very lax drinking and driving laws and just says,
"Hey, let's just put a bar in the car."
That's right, fold out your dashboard
and you've got your whiskey and your glasses.
- Some dashboards had a bar in them,
like sure you wish that the driver wasn't taking use of it,
but man, this is when Americans knew how to party.
- Steering wheels are a lot fancier too.
Back in the days before power steering,
they would come with this chrome knob
that made turning the wheel a lot easier.
- Steering wheels now are like,
"Oh, I can control the air conditioning.
Oh, I could put the volume up and down."
How about when a steering wheel was a steering wheel,
big with a beautiful emblem in the middle of it
and like it was some American pride in that.
"This is an American car. I could drive with this."
- [Don] They thought of everything
with these awesome design elements
except for one little thing.
- [Kavitha] Cars are getting faster,
and now you have all of these decorative, pointy,
sharp elements in your car.
So you could imagine if there's a collision,
it's a recipe for disaster.
- [Brian] Now these people would be driving around
with the steering knob on.
They get to an accident, [tires screeching]
they would hit their head, they would die.
They call these things the suicide knobs.
- [Nicole] All of these little flashy knobs and buttons
are now actually little knives
via an accident coming at you.
- [Brian] You can get a switch in your cheek or a knob in your
eye, and it could hurt like heck.
- [Kavitha] In the 1950s and '60s,
doctors actually have a new category of trauma
that they see patients come in with
that they call dashboard injuries.
And that's face lacerations and crushed noses,
things like that, from these accidents.
- [Don] In 1965 comes the big turning point.
Lawyer safety advocate, Ralph Nader,
publishes a book it's called, "Unsafe at Any Speed,"
which exposes automakers
for ignoring all these known safety problems.
By the early 1970s, the car interior of doom era ends
as car makers start prioritizing survival over aesthetics.
- Dashboards will never quite be like they were,
but at least now,
they're a lot less likely to kill you.
- Today, it's not unusual to see electric cars on the road,
but it sure was back in the 1980s.
That's when a rich computer genius tried to save the world
by creating an all-electric personal transit device.
Unfortunately, good intentions
don't always make great vehicles.
- [Don] Clive Sinclair is an Englishman
who's a lifelong tinkerer.
He develops and sells this pocket calculator
that becomes a must-have for brainiacs everywhere,
and then, a personal computer.
- The ZX Spectrum eventually sells 5 million units.
It makes him a very rich man.
In 1983, he's knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
In every way, he's the British equivalent of Steve Jobs.
- [Lance] Sinclair has revolutionized the computer
market and he decides he's gonna also revolutionize
the automobile market,
and he's gonna produce an electric car.
- [Jason] On January 10th, 1985,
when he's getting ready to unveil this thing
at this glitzy event in London,
anticipation is sky high.
- [Reporter] So Clive Sinclair's latest brainchild
is something of a surprise.
The C5 is, after all, a futuristic,
and rather sleek vehicle with unusual design features.
- [Martin] The Sinclair C5, upon rollout, doesn't
look like a car.
It doesn't look like a motorcycle.
This electrically assisted pedal tricycle
is unlike anything that anyone had seen before.
- [Jason] It's sort of like the scooters in "Tron."
It's very futuristic and very foreign.
- [Don] Ads boast that the C5 can go 5 miles
on a penny's worth of charge, and it costs 400 pounds.
It's like $4,000 today.
- [Lance] Important people like Elton John get a Sinclair C5.
So it actually initially gets a whole lot of excitement
until people start to drive it.
- [Henry] Sparked by the initial buzz,
Sinclair sets an ambitious goal
of 100,000 sales in year one.
But when the C5 hits the road,
things get rocky.
- [Don] The crazy thing is that there's no laws
against taking this little scooter into rush hour traffic.
- [Lance] It looks a lot like a jet ski.
You're sitting way down,
the handlebars are actually under your legs.
You are so low to the ground
that it's very difficult for drivers to see you.
- [Jason] Be prepared to get a face full of exhaust
because you're right there eye level with the exhaust.
- [Lance] It goes a maximum of 15 miles per hour.
You're going really slow
and you're gonna be pumping that down the highway
with all the trucks around you.
- [Jason] It doesn't even have a rear-view mirror.
You can actually add a rear-view mirror and a horn,
but those cost extra.
- [Lance] Initially, there's a lot of sales,
but quickly, it starts to get poor reviews.
The BBC journalist [chuckles]
makes an astounding observation.
He says, "There's nothing this can do for you
that you can't do with just a regular bicycle."
- [Henry] Sinclair pulls the plug on the C5
after only 10 months in production.
Of the 14,000 units built,
they can't even sell half.
- The public realizes very quickly
that this is not the thing for them,
and it even causes Sinclair to have to shut down
his research company.
It was that bad.
- Years before the Sinclair C5,
there was a tiny vehicle
that tried to turn a space age fantasy
into an everyday ride
until it came crashing down to Earth.
- [Austin] In the 1950s and '60s,
America is obsessed with space.
We're in the space race against the Russians,
and UFOs are all across our mass media.
- [Kavitha] There's a company called Peel Engineering
that makes fiberglass paneling for motorcycles and boats.
But in 1964, they decide to do something a little different.
- [Hakeem] Peel debuts their first vehicle,
what they call a terrestrial flying saucer,
AKA, The Peel Trident.
- [Negin] If you're thinking about the Jetsons,
it is essentially the Jetsons' car.
- [Kavitha] It's got three wheels,
which is why it's called The Trident.
- [Martin] This looks like it's something for kids,
which would be fine
if that's all it was supposed to do was haul kids around.
But instead,
this is supposed to be a
practical means of transportation for adults
who are going to adult jobs,
in adult traffic.
- [Rutledge] It's a little gas-powered engine, about 50 cc.
This thing gets 100 miles a gallon,
so they advertise it as cheaper than walking.
I mean, the brilliance is, it's tiny.
It can fit anywhere in the city.
They're super light.
You can lift it over a curb, park it wherever you want.
- [Austin] The Peel is cheap, it's functional, and it's fun,
and it's advertised all over the United Kingdom.
Anticipation is high for this tiny commuter car.
- [Henry] But when the flying saucer lands,
the bubble bursts.
- [Kavitha] The biggest problem with the car, is the dome.
There are no windows in this thing.
And a glass dome on a sunny day, is basically a greenhouse.
- [Negin] On like a beautiful 75 degree day,
it feels like 130 degrees inside the Peel Trident.
Why didn't anybody, like, look into that?
- [Hakeem] You're not safe in a Trident on a cold day either.
Fumes from the engine seep into the car
every time you press on the gas.
- I've driven a Peel Trident, and it is a real experience.
It's more like climbing in your dryer
and bringing your lawnmower engine with you,
and then you start it and immediately, you feel hot,
and it's a little hard to breathe in there.
- [Austin] The Trident eventually ends up
on Time magazine's 50 Worst Cars of All Time.
It sells only 80 models total,
dogged by poor performance,
and the fact that its space age technology and styling
was slowly trying to murder you.
- It just goes to show
they don't make them like they used to,
and maybe that's a good thing.
- As much as you may rely on your car,
there is one place
you probably shouldn't drive it, off road.
For that, you need something a little more rugged.
And in 1970, one small vehicle
promised fun for the whole family,
if only you could figure out how to control it.
[engine revving]
- [Natalia] In the early '70s,
Honda is really struggling
with motorcycle sales in the winter.
And so they're looking for something to replace that.
They try snowmobiles,
but they don't really catch on in a big way.
- The company sees a hole in the market.
They think about what could be fun in the winter,
but could also be enjoyed all year round.
- [Hakeem] There are these six-wheeled vehicles
that are being sold as all-terrain vehicles,
but they're really expensive.
The company decides to make its own version,
but instead of six wheels, it'll have three.
And they call it the three-wheel ATV.
- [Jason] So in this era, recreational ATVs are still
very novel.
They're definitely not widespread.
So the idea of taking on nature in this cool new vehicle,
it's mind blowing to most people.
- [Austin] There's one commercial for the Honda 250R.
They ride through snow, and ice, and streams.
It's quick cuts, it's low angles,
it's energetic, it's fun.
These are thrilling rides.
[engines revving]
- It's basically a love child between a military ATV
and a motorcycle.
I mean, you can go on all of this different terrain,
you know, beach, snow, rocks,
you name it, it can do it.
- The most groundbreaking thing about the three-wheel ATV
is that it has no suspension.
- [Austin] Suspensions keep wheels down or they absorb
shocks, shock absorbers.
But suspensions can get heavy.
They can weigh a vehicle down.
- [Hakeem] It sounds crazy, but it makes the vehicle
way more fun.
By being more lightweight, that means it's more nimble.
- [Austin] Without a suspension,
the tires are recommended to be underinflated
to smooth out rough terrain,
so it just feels like you're floating.
[engine revving]
- Is anybody riding a three-wheeled ATV
for the comfort?
[engine revving] [upbeat music]
We wanna whip around corners so fast,
we wanna do high jumps.
This ATV is not built for the type of person
that needs a suspension.
It's built for the type of people
that don't need suspension.
- [Natalia] The ATV is marketed
for anyone who's kind of young and thrill-seeking.
And guess what? A lot of kids see themselves that way.
- [Jason] And they even market it
to like kids as young as like 7 years old, right?
They even make a little brother model,
which is like the mini version of the three-wheeled ATV.
- [Brian] If a kid in your neighborhood had one,
you had to make that kid your friend.
Because the type of parents
that were buying you a three-wheeled ATV,
were also not supervising
what you did on the three-wheel ATV.
- [Henry] By 1987,
multiple companies are cashing in
on the three-wheel ATV craze.
Sales hit 2.5 million.
But three wheelers aren't as easy to ride as they look,
or nearly as stable.
- When there's no suspension,
it feels kind of bouncy and playful.
But those springs that are usually there,
they play a big role
in kind of keeping it upright and on the ground.
- [Austin] You have to be aware of the machine, of the balance.
You have to constantly shift your weight around
to ensure that this thing doesn't flip over.
- [Jason] Just imagine like a three-legged stool
as opposed a four-legged stool,
you lean the wrong way, that thing's just gonna roll.
- [Brian] I hit a rock with my back right wheel,
the whole thing lifted up
and then just continued to go over and fell on me
and broke two ribs right here.
But they looked so cool, man.
- [Henry] Between 1983 and 1988, [engine revving]
three-wheeled ATVs are linked to more than 300,000 injuries,
and most of them kids.
- [Jason] One study shows that every ATV sold,
has a one in three chance of causing severe injury or death.
- [Natalia] In 1987, "60 Minutes" airs the episode,
"The Most Dangerous Vehicle,"
and it's all about three-wheeled ATVs.
So the word is definitely out
that this is not just harmless fun.
- [Austin] The government is eventually forced to act
and compels the industry
to spend $100 million on safety programs,
providing free training,
and clearly labeling age limits on the vehicles.
- [Jason] The industry responds by really retiring
the three-wheeled ATV.
They replaced it with a four-wheeled ATV,
but also one that has real suspension.
- [Brian] Today, if there was a three-wheel ATV right here,
you couldn't keep me off it now.
Those things were dangerous, but those things were fun.
- [Henry] Thinking back on our history with cars,
whether they were flying, shattering, or exploding,
souping things up could get a little out of hand,
but that's why our hazardous history was fuel for the soul.