REINVENTING THE WHEEL

The gyroscopically stabilised Gyro-X blurred the line between reality and science fiction. Sam Glover takes the prototype for a spin

- Sam Glover

The Gyro-X should never have existed. A two-wheeled gyroscopically stabilised car, like contemporary flying, magnetically levitating and nuclear-powered cars of the 1950s and 1960s, would not normally have made it beyond the pages of Mechanix Illustrated magazine. Its improbable leap from fantasy to reality was thanks to two uniquely talented individuals: a designer with a penchant for heroic failures, and a scientist with world-leading knowledge in gyroscopes. They met in 1960s California, as NASA launched the first Americans into space and Sharp landed the first microwave ovens on the shelves of Sears department stores. If ever there was a time and place that anything seemed possible, it was then and there.

Tom Summers had a flair for logic, physics, mathematics and mechanics. A textbook genius. He also had an aviation fetish, attaining a pilot's licence before he graduated from high school. In early adulthood, he invented a gyroscopic air speed indicator that became the basis of the US Navy's Norden Bombsight in World War Two. He continued in the same field post-war and established the Summers Gyroscope Company in 1946. When he stepped down 15 years later at the age of 51, the company had over 1500 employees and he had more than 30 patents to his name. In 1961, he formed the Summers Gyrocar Company in Northridge, California, to scratch his itch to develop gyroscopically stabilised vehicles. 'Four wheels are ridiculous, three wheels are foolish, but two wheels are proper,' he explained in 1975.