One word. James Potter.
As in Harry Potter’s father?
And that’s two words…
William Shatner! Ex-ELL-Ent! 
As in Mikael Atkinson!!!
You guys are confusing.
Ooooh!! I’m gonna see Mikael this month!!
Oh yeah!
Is that really how to spell his name?
How about Buckminster Fuller? Like Salvatore Dali he’s also dead, but these guys are at least relatively recent…
Below is a car he designed. Rear engine and rear steering (bad idea) but an aerodynamic shape that was very light and extremely streamlined for its day. It’s at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, and I believe the insides are awating restoration.
He is more of the type that I’m talking about.
That is one sweet vehicle! Rear wheel steering is really cool though. Ever driven a forklift?
Wow. Just wow.
You have not been enlightened until you have met the preznit.
Rear steering is great for forklifts, and hand carts, and other stuff that needs to make tight turns but doesn’t go real fast.
Rear steering on a car, especially a car with a rear engine, is a recipe for disaster. One false move at medium speed, and you’re going backwards or spinning all over the place. If you’ve driven a rear-engine Volkswagen in the snow you know a little bit of why this would be a problem. When a front-engine rear-drive car starts to fishtail, you generally just take your foot off the gas and it straightens right out. But by the time you detect the fishtail in an old Volkswagen Bus, you’re probably on your way to a comple 180!
So rear steering might work with computerized control, to keep the car from making sudden side-to-side movements. Of course this type of system wasn’t available back in those days…
except of course the current world land speed record holder, Thrust SSC, used rear steering, infact offset rear steering. Bit of a one-off though.
I guess that’s why it’s nice to go backwards when you drive fast on a forklift.
It still would be fun…
So obviously the modern Renaissance man would create the prototype for a rear-steering retro-looking bus.
A bit better than this though.
I nominate Steve Martin His accomplishments in many fields are pretty amazing.
Stand-up Comedian
juggler
Best selling Author
Screenplay writer
Playwright
Producer
Actor
Director
Accomplished Banjo Player (with a new album out)
Artist/painter
What doesn’t he do??
He sounds like a well-rounded guy.
What about his culinary skills, or are those not important?
Wow, I never knew that! I read the car’s web site where it talks about the steering system. With 6 degrees of movement, it might have been enough to turn the car around in half a kilometer or so.
Of course that car was built to go as straight as possible, so the risk of rear steering was relatively minimal. If you dig around on that site you can read mention of the Budweiser Rocket Car, which was the “world’s fastest unicycle” (powered) and Craig Breedlove’s original Spirit of America, which is listed by Guinness for having made the world’s longest skid marks (about 6 miles).
anything technical or with any scienctific content apparently. What you have their is a well rounded artist. The renaissance man is both artist and scientist.