Coming to an Auto Show Near You: The Flying Car

If you’ve got a car and you want to show it off, the New York International Auto Show is the place to be, and this year’s 113th isn’t too likely to be any different. On tap’ll be new cars, electric luxury cars, and oh yeah, as Autotopia reports: the MIT-alumni-innovated flying car from Terrafugia, looking to scrape up new customers from the auto crowd.

Things are looking a little brighter for the Woburn company, which has for the past while, been wallowing in a muck of delays and postponed production dates. (Although in fairness, as a maker of both a car and a plane, it pretty much had double the usual red tape from the start.) Two weeks ago, it took its new and improved model on a quick jaunt 1,400-feet over Plattsburgh; last year, it received clearance from the Department of Transportation to hit the highways, and the year before that, the FAA agreed it could take to the air. It’s now engaged in further flying and crash tests, though it has pushed its delivery date back to 2013, possibly to the frustration of the 100 or so clients who’ve already dropped a $10k or so deposit down for their Car Of The Future.

This isn’t the only option out there in terms of flying cars (Dutch flying copter-car just took its first flight), but if you’re thinking about buying, you might as well stay local. By all accounts, Terrafugia is still the most advanced of the models out there, and has certainly done its homework, crossing its T’s and dotting its bureaucratic I’s. It does cost in the neighborhood of a serious Ferrari, so I’m not sure if I would consider it unless you’re very, very rich and have a pilot’s license, a single-car garage, and a 1,700-foot-long driveway.

The rest of us will merely try to bum rides off of you when your car comes off the factory line sometime next year. I call shotgun.