An advertisement circa 1955 by Mack Trucks showing a fanciful “rocket bus” of the future. This is of course in no way a serious proposal, but instead a humorous illustration of automotive excess. Still, it’s an interesting look into a long-extinct mindset: “the future will be full of awesome.”
It’s interesting that in the sixty-plus years since this illustration was made, “the bus” has not really changed that much. Sure, they’re more efficient, probably more comfortable… but they’re essentially the same size, taking the same passenger load on the same roads at virtually the same speeds. I have little insight into the mindset of bus designers from the middle of the 1950s, but I’d lay odds that they would have expected that the bus of 2018 would be *fundamentally* different. Atomic powered, or hovercraft, or wing-in-ground-effect, or electromagnetically levitated… something.