A Man Tried To Build The World’s Most Capable Off-Road Vehicle, And It Had Just A Single Wheel

The basic formula for an off-road vehicle hasn’t changed much throughout history. Some of the most capable vehicles have four-wheel drive, loads of ground clearance, knobby tires, and lockers. Inventor Charles F. Taylor thought the status quo was wrong and that while 4x4s worked, there was a better way. How? Taylor saw a future of off-road trucks that rode on just one giant wheel. It sounds like something out of science fiction, then he built a real-life example to prove his point.

The four-wheel-drive vehicle has been around for almost as long as the car itself has. Depending on who you ask, the Spyker 60 HP racecar built by the Spijkers in 1902 was the first car to have full time mechanical four-wheel-drive. It also had four-wheel brakes and a six-cylinder engine.

Many early 4x4s were for agricultural and military uses, but over the decades, 4x4s became useful for people who weren’t farmers or military. Eventually, going wheeling in a 4×4 became a recreational activity. Motorcycles have also been an important part of off-roading. Bikes could reach tight places 4x4s could not and to this day, the motorcycle remains one of the most minimalist ways to travel. The vast majority of motorcycles throughout history have a one-wheel-drive design, yet still get places far and beyond.

Inventor Charles F. Taylor of Golden, Colorado, thought there was something better than either the 4×4 or the motorcycle. He felt that the existing off-road vehicles weren’t really suited to tight mountain trails. His solution? Reduce the number of wheels to one and have a compact off-road truck-like vehicle that hauled itself over any obstacle in its path.

Taylor passed in 1997 after 81 years of engineering, inventions, and creativity. Sadly, like many inventors who did not become famous, Taylor’s work didn’t really gain traction until after his death. As Hemmings explains, we know of Taylor’s inventions through Oliver O’Reilly, a Professor at UC Berkeley. One time, O’Reilly taught a seminar on movies and mechanics when he was approached by Tony Urry. Urry’s cousin married Mary Anne Taylor, Charles Taylor’s daughter. Through these people, we now know of the inventions of a man almost forgotten in history.

Mary Urry provided the O’Reilly with this story, from UC Berkeley:

Charles F. Taylor (1916-1997) was an American Engineer and Inventor. He spent two years of undergraduate study at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

During the Second World War, Taylor worked on VG recorders at Hathaway Instrument Company in Denver. Previously, he had worked at International Harvester at the start of the 1940’s. In the 1950’s and 60’s he worked at Coors Porcelain in Golden Colorado. For Coors, he developed a ceramic ball press. As this was a device that their competitors, Champion Spark Plug had tried and failed for years to develop, it was an invaluable machine for Coors Porcelain. The extremely hard ceramic balls created by the press are still used today, especially in industrial grinding, particularly white pigment for paint, which metal balls would mark or stain. In the late 1960’s, Taylor left Coors to work at Morse Chain (which became a division of Borg Warner) in Denver, where he stayed until the mid 1970’s. Here, he worked on drive trains and transmissions, and even developed two patents for automatic transmissions in 1971 and 1973.

If you’re interested in looking at Taylor’s patents, Google has pages of his patents available by clicking here.

As Hemmings writes, Taylor had a fondness for tractors thanks in-part to his experience at International Harvester, but his dream was a different kind of vehicle. Starting in about 1939, Taylor’s dream and magnum opus was an off-road vehicle that was propelled, suspended, braked, and steered by a single wheel. And since we’re talking about the 1930s here, we’re talking about a vehicle that would do this entirely mechanically without a computer in sight.

When Taylor wasn’t inventing the ceramic ball press or engineering for other companies, he worked on his dream. The Taylor One-Wheeled Vehicle started life as a giant single wheel that was thought to have been borrowed from a tractor. surrounding the wheel was a perimeter frame and a station for the driver. But the real magic was how it worked.

O’Reilly became fascinated with the one-wheel vehicle and joined forces with two undergraduates, Bernice Yen and Tim Wheeler. Together, they wanted to figure out how Taylor not only concocted the vehicle but actually built functional prototypes and filmed the concept working. O’Reilly, with additional help from Eric Lew and Bayram Orazov, pored over the patents and the video. The result is that they figured out how to explain most of Taylor’s one-wheel vehicle, which Urry indicated that Taylor affectionately called his “rig.”

From the Berkeley Engineering Division:

The steering system for the one-wheeled vehicle is fairly simple. It utilizes a gyroscope which is mounted at the rear end of the vehicle, on the right side, and turns about an axis in the lateral (left to right) direction. The steering wheel is in the front of the vehicle, on the left side. As the wheel is turned, that motion is transferred to a long rod, which in turn, affects the motion of a lever at the rear left side of the vehicle. Attached to this lever, is a threaded rod, which is attached to a handwheel, so that the gyroscope position may be manually adjusted, ensuring that the gyroscopic weight wheel has an angular velocity direction perpendicular to that of the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. The rod, as affected by the motion of the lever, can impart to the gyroscope, a moment in the z-direction (up and down), causing angular acceleration in the third (lateral) direction, allowing the vehicle to turn.

The stabilizing mechanisms for the one-wheeled vehicle must be able to counter perturbations in both the lateral (side to side) and longitudinal (front to back) directions.

The stabilizing system for the one-wheeled vehicle includes two gyroscopes. The first gyroscope, whose main function is steering, also aids in lateral balance. It keeps the vehicle platform from dipping down on the left or right sides, since gyroscopes strongly resist changes to their rotation. Also affecting the lateral stability is a weight block at the rear end of the vehicle. The weight’s position is affected by the steering system. As the steering wheel turns, it affects the motion of a lever, which is then able to affect the position to the weight. As the lever moves, it moves the weight sideways, changing the center of mass of the vehicle, helping it to stay balanced.

The second gyroscope’s exact position on the one-wheeled vehicle is indeterminable from the drawings and explanations in the patent. However, its purpose is clear. The second gyroscope rotates in a plane parallel to that of the vehicle’s platform. As the platform tips longitudinally, it imparts an angular velocity in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the original angular velocity. The gyroscope then compensates by creating an angular acceleration, which imparts a force to the vehicle, restoring it to its original position and keeping it longitudinally balanced. Longitudinal balance may also be controlled by an airblower mounted at the end of the vehicle. As the vehicle tips forward, two small weights positioned longitudinally, and pinned at the middle rotate about the pin. A sensor registers how much they tip, and an electrical apparatus (undefined by Taylor ) processes the information. It then sends appropriate signals to a pair of solenoids, which affect the shutters of the airblower, thereby affecting how much force the airblower provides to the vehicle to keep it balanced.

The awesome part about all of this is that it’s not just theory. As I said earlier, Taylor built multiple machines and then made a home video showing one-wheel vehicles gliding above the ground.

Another patent was filed in 1960 and it’s believed that Taylor built at least three prototype rigs largely in secret and developed the concept through at least 1965.

Reportedly, Taylor may have even considered taking his idea mainstream. Urry says Taylor took his idea to the U.S. Military in the 1950s. However, it’s not known what, if anything, the military did with his idea. But, there is what appears to be a promotional image from Taylor showing a potential future where one-wheel trucks traversed steep terrain perfectly upright. It’s something right out of Popular Science.

When Taylor passed in 1997, he was survived by his daughters Betsy McGee and Mary Urry, son Charles Glenn, and widow Ruth Taylor. Urry is a major part of the reason why Taylor’s dream lives on today and Glenn appears to be bringing his father’s ideas back into reality again.

As Hemmings wrote in August, Glenn still has parts of his father’s projects and was able to provide additional insight.

That sole wheel stands five feet tall and its tire came from a tractor. The rig’s main engine is a Homelite two-stroke chainsaw engine while the gyroscope is powered by another Homelite two-stroke chainsaw. If that sounds underpowered for what appears in the video, it’s because as Glenn told Hemmings, the prototype shown moving at great speed in the video had an engine from a Ford Falcon and an electric gyroscope motor.

Glenn is sitting on the parts and most of the plans to make a modern version of his dad’s dream, but he isn’t an engineer. He hopes one day he’ll find someone who could put the pieces back together and get the Taylor rig working again.

Taylor’s story is inspirational. He had a dream — one that sounded impossible — and saw it through to make something the world hadn’t seen before. I wonder what would have happened had the ‘rig’ survived further than several working prototypes. Could there have been a future where we climb mountains on one wheel instead of two or four? I don’t know, but I’m glad Taylor’s one-wheeler exists. Inventors like Charles F. Taylor are proof that your ideas are worth chasing, even if they sound impossible.

(Images credited to Charles F. Taylor where applicable and used with permission.)