The Self Driving Car Of The 70S Was Surprisingly Legit

Here in 2015, self-driving cars are only just hitting the open road in earnest, but the idea goes back decades and decades. In fact, self-driving cars were scooting around as long ago as 1971, and even by today’s standards they look pretty legit. This particular car was a project of the British Road Research Laboratory and worked via “electronic impulses relayed to the car through a special receiving unit affixed to the front.” More specifically, that big box on the front bumper there was following a breadcrumb trail of metallic strips placed on the road; a far cry from the self-driving cars of today that actually see and parse the real world, but more than enough to get going on a test track. At the time, researchers predicted these might be in wide use by the year 2000. Looks like their guess was a little bit optimistic, but far from wrong. View full post on YoutubeThis fantastic little video is out on the internet now thanks to the Associated Press, which just dumped over half a million archived clips onto YouTube. Go and dig through them and maybe you’ll find some proto hoverboards too. Source: British Movietone via The Associated Press