Ford Nucleon

The Ford Nucleon was a concept car developed by Ford in 1957 as a vision of a nuclear-powered automobile, one of a handful of such designs imagined during the 1950s and 1960s. It was only ever shown as a scale model. The design had no internal combustion engine. Instead a small nuclear reactor was to sit at the rear of the car and heat water to drive a steam power train, much as the reactors in nuclear submarines of the time did. Ford imagined owners swapping the whole reactor after about 5,000 miles and choosing between fuel-efficient and high-performance reactor units. The car was not a serious production plan but a statement of faith that reactors and their radiation shielding would one day shrink enough to fit a passenger car, which has not happened. A mock-up is kept at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, and the Nucleon later inspired the nuclear cars of the Fallout video game series.