Lane Museum buys Erickson streamliner; explores similarities to Dymaxion

Photos courtesy John Steelman.

So, what do you do for an encore after building a replica of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion—one of the most fantastic vehicles ever conceived—and putting it on the road? If you’re Jeff Lane, you buy and restore its little sibling, a one-off streamliner with a mysterious background.

Anton Erickson’s streamliner, which he built in 1945 in Fairborn, Ohio, shares a handful of similarities with the Dymaxion despite the fact that the two vehicles were built in separate times and places. Not only did both attempt to streamline vehicle design with a tadpole or reverse-trike layout—two wheels in the front and one in the rear—both vehicles also placed their engines in the middle, the driven wheels up front and the steerable wheel in the rear.

Which is not to say both vehicles were cut from the same mold. Erickson, an engineer who worked for Wright Field during World War II and possibly for GM’s Research Corporation in the years after the war, built his streamliner at home using surplus and scavenged parts: a Jeep four-cylinder engine, a 1930s Ford rear axle, B-29 Superfortress aluminum skin. Fuller, though he ultimately built just three of the cars, envisioned going into production with the Dymaxion and set up shop in the old Locomobile factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Lane, however, believes the connection between the two could be deeper than mere layout similarities. “The part that really fascinates me is Fuller drew a smaller Dymaxion, I think he called it the Tudor,” Lane said. “It is very much like the Erikson. Did Erikson see that drawing back in the day and decide to build the car?”

Speculation right now, Lane admits, but he’s researching the possibility. In the meantime, he said his plan is to place the Erickson next to the Dymaxion in the Lane Motor Museum and then begin a restoration of the Erickson early next year.

For more information on the Lane Motor Museum, visit LaneMotorMuseum.org.