Behold, the humble beginnings of the Toyota SkyDrive flying car!

It’s like 1903 all over again

Toyota invested in a small company, called Cartivator Resource Management, to produce a flying car that would light up the flame for the 2020 Olympics. The first prototype didn't fare too well, though…

Ah, the early days of an industry! People will look back at these images and wonder: how could they get it so wrong, and yet, get it so right in so little time? It took 44 years from the Wright Brothers' successful tests with the first plane to the first supersonic manned flight. Let's hope we'll need less from the first flying car tests to the time when crossing a city in the air would be as normal as taking the subway is today.

For the moment, it doesn't seem that the 30 engineers at Cartivator have a successful working prototype, though. It's loud as heck, wobbles in the air, looks cumbersome and… well, it crashes.

They do have at least a couple of years to get it right for the 2020 Olympics, as a driver would have to fly high in the sky to lit up the Olympic flame. The SkyDrive project costs little (around $386,000 were invested by Toyota in the company) but could open a lot of interesting roads, so to speak.