In 1971 two Northrop-trained engineers in Van Nuys set out to build a flying car called the AVE Mizar, and the design was about as literal as it sounds: they bolted the back half of a Cessna Skymaster — wings, twin tail booms, and a propeller — onto a Ford Pinto. Both engines would fire for takeoff, the car engine would switch off in the air, and after landing you'd unbolt the Pinto and drive home. They planned to sell it for as little as $18,300.
On an August 1973 test flight, the base of the right wing strut pulled loose just after takeoff; the pilot set the craft down in a bean field and drove it back to the airport. Two weeks later, with company co-founder Henry Smolinski at the controls, the strut failed again, and this time the aircraft came apart in the air. Smolinski and his business partner Harold Blake were both killed. Investigators found the machine was already over its weight limit and blamed the crash partly on bad welds.
Previously:
• The Flying Pinto
