These Vintage Ideas of the Future Were Actually Pretty Impressive

Shannon Quinn - December 15, 2022

Armored Pushcarts to Protect Soldiers on the Battlefield

This issue of Popular Mechanics from 1915 suggests putting soldiers in armored push carts while they are on the battlefield. On Reddit, quite a few people joked about how inefficient this would actually be. One of the top comments says, “For use on those famous flat obstruction free WW1 no-mans land.” Another said, “Lovely well maintained lawns. Just right for those small castor wheels.” Harsh, but true. No army would ever use this, because they are like bringing your own coffin to the battlefield. There is a good reason why these push carts were never actually invented.

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Sega VR: The Headset That Never Was

Yet another company to come out with a vintage VR headset was Sega in the 1990’s. It was planned to be an add-on accessory to the Sega Genesis. And for a while, they were confident that it would be released, because it was shown at several trade shows and expositions. But this would never come to fruition, because the company ran into too many technical issues. On Reddit, one of the top comments said, “I want the alternate timeline where Sega invents the Metaverse, not Facebook.” Same.

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When Will We Finally Get Flying Cars?

This next illustration looks like something straight out of The Jetsons. We will probably never get flying cars, because they would be too expensive for the average person. On Reddit, people were arguing over the safety of this vehicle design. Many people argue it would never work because of the poor visibility underneath the aircraft.

How did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

Retro future predictions that show how people from the past imagined the future, 1900s-1970s. Rare Historical Photos.

Man Amplifier Cornell Lab 1962-1966. AllAboutImages. YouTube

RetroFuturism. Reddit.

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