Parking will always be a problem in cities... To address this, specialist city cars have been designed that are shorter, and hence have a much smaller 'footprint', than their sub-urban cousins. However, even city cars have a minimum practical length, particularly if you want to carry overweight causasians...
Have you ever though how much less space a car would take if it was vertical? I propose the following solution, the VertiCar[tm], specifically designed to stack vertically.
The car would be designed with a device shaped like a pair of 'forklift-like' hydraulic arms under the car, thus allowing it to be tilted backwards onto its haunches - and providing a stable platform.
Having already left the vehicle , the driver would unlock the brakes on a small set of wheels under each arm and roll the car into an unfeasibly small parking place.
Finally, the driver looks at the neatly stacked car, and wishes he had let the passengers out first...-- riposte, Apr 27 2001 'How to live in a flat' - Heath Robinson http://www.alibris....&matches=146&qsort=Ooh, this book is $424. I wonder if I still have my copy. [hippo, Apr 27 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Hmm ... would they stack? Wouldn't be terribly useful, and it would bring a whole new meaning to being 'blocked in'.-- Rodomontade, Apr 27 2001 How about a version that lifts the car horizontally, in it's normal attitude, allowing it to park over other cars (with retractable rope ladders to get to the ground)? Added benefit: deployment at high-speed, with a deft touch, would allow drivers to leap-frog over slower moving cars. Practicing could be brutal.-- kalashnikov, Apr 27 2001 HalfBaked already (But I can't find a link for it). This means of parking cars was the subject of a W. Heath Robinson drawing in one of his books (possibly "How to live in a flat").-- hippo, Apr 27 2001 Am sure I saw this in an old 60's MAD magazine - including the ferris wheel car parking platform - ---- benfrost, Apr 28 2001 Excellent idea, once you've sorted out the problems of leaking liquids which should anyway have been sorted out by aerobatic aircraft manufacturers. It would also mean that city cars need not be those ridiculous sit-up-and-beg jobs like the Smart and Merc A. As an alternative for instance, a Ferrari would have a very thin parking footprint-- Gordon Comstock, May 01 2001 Dominoes!!!!-- nick_n_uit, May 02 2001 Has nobody dismissed this idea yet on the grounds that after parking and tilting the car nose-up, if the length of the horizontal car is to be regained by more parked cars, there will be no way to put it back down? And if we preserve the space so that we can put it back down, we haven't gained an inch...? Hello? Am I missing something?-- globaltourniquet, May 02 2001 sssssssshhhhhhh-- thumbwax, May 02 2001 Oh. Little wheels on the arms. How quaint. OK. I'll be quiet now. (But I'm sure I don't want to push my nose-up car sideways into a slot -- fishbone after all).-- globaltourniquet, May 02 2001 [Rods Tiger] Hmmm, I suspect that a phone box on wheels might be a bit unstable at speed. There is the small matter of air resistance...
Good, lateral (or perhaps, dorsal) thinking though...
[Globaltourniquet] The car can be placed into the horizontal position by sliding it out of the parking space, then holding up all the traffic for several minutes whilst it tilts down. ;-)
[nick_n_nuit] The extending arms provide a stable base/platform, so sorry, no dominoes. Unless,of course, you paint dots on the underside of each car...-- riposte, May 02 2001 Rods, you thought SUVs were top-heavy and prone to rollover...-- globaltourniquet, May 02 2001 I suppose cars could also be winched vertically, rolling up against the walls of buildings?
or placed inside where it wasn't windy, otherwise they could make v.expensive wind-chimes...-- riposte, May 08 2001 yeah, like the way Big Willie parks his Audi in "I Robot" i wouldent want this system IN my car, but it could be adapted to integrate into future parking structures.-- auricom_mech, Aug 03 2006 random, halfbakery