I have never seen that before. Really amazingly clever, although I don't see it ever being applied to modern cars. Even though in the clip the narrator says the inventor says it can be installed on "any car" that looks like a pretty complicated set up. My guess is that it wasn't easily installed on ANY vehicle. Which is probably why we don't have active spare tires that aid in parking vehicles today. But it's amazing to see what was created. Just looking at those cars is interesting. We think todays SUV's are mammoth, but those cars were TANKS. No easily dented plastic bumpers back then.
Ha haa, yes I too found it fascinating. Cons: 1. you need a full size spare 2. you need a deep trunk, as the spare is stored vertically not horizontally 3. you really damage your front tires using this 4. you need the spare 'stored' high enough not to damage it when you BOUNCE over stuff (and those 1950's cars sure did BOUNCE!) 5. Folks would start doing wheelies ha ha haa
I think the concept has some merit, but the execution wasn't done well at all. The spare doesn't work well because of size. You don't need a large wheel for this operation, in fact a tracked arm mounted underneath would be more advantageous because it can be much smaller and directed from an established hard-point under the car. Sorta like a snowmobile track mounted sideways on an upside-down jack.
The execution wasn't done well? It was 1950...the wheel hadn't even been around that long. I have to applaud what it was, as what it was... Sure we could do better today, but who in 1950 looks at those automobiles, and comes up with that solution? That inventor was a marvelous bastard! I'd like to know what else he came up with...
