Tall Cars

Came across this picture on Dustbury. My bible fu is weak, so I had to go look this up, and here's what I found:

And their rims were tall and awesome, and the rims of all four were full of eyes all around.

Whoa! They had rims back in the old days? So I read the whole passage, and, yeah, verily, the old dude is talking about wheels, man, but no, he's not talking about cars or even any kind of wagon. It's one of them "vision" things.

Now this kind of car might be impractical six ways from Sunday, but it does have one advantage and that is it gives you an elevated driving position. Never mind that 99% of the drivers don't look any farther ahead than the bumper three feet in front of them. If you want to stay out of trouble and minimize changes in your velocity, you need to look farther ahead, and that's where an elevated position comes in handy.

Meanwhile back at the fuel pump, everyone is more concerned with mileage, which means smaller, lower cars. Now you could raise your car bodily up in the air, much like our example here, and that would improve your viewpoint, but the mechanical drivetrain is still on the down low, exposed to the wind, increasing your drag, and impacting your mileage.

If you were determined, you would could revise the drive train so that it was not such a wind blocker, either by using a chain drive like a motorcycle, or putting electric motors inside the wheels. Might want to do something about the style. Or not. I kind of like older cars.

I don't quite understand why we can see through the rims on this side of the car, but not on the other, unless ... unless he has different rims on the other side. But why would you do that? Don't mind me, I'll just go back to my tea.