Company Wings with Flying Car and Investors

The flying car, developed by students and faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is attracting hundreds of potential customers and investors — and it hasn't been built.

More than 75 pilots in Australia, France and the US are offering deposits, and distributors around the world want to sell the $US148,000 ($A197,000) Transition personal air vehicle, says principal inventor Carl Dietrich.

"We're trying to approach this from a pilot's perspective, someone who is thinking, 'What would be nice is to keep my plane in my garage at home instead of paying $400 or $500 in hangar fees'," Dr Dietrich, 29, said.

The Transition, developed by Terrafugia Inc, a company formed by Dr Dietrich and MIT students, was the talk of venture capitalists before the 17th annual MIT $100K Entrepreneurs Contest, where it was a runner-up among 164 entries.

The flying car will look like a cross between a Toyota Prius and a Cessna aircraft. It weighs 600 kilograms and the wings can be folded up vertically.

In theory, the pilot would drive the Transition to a local airport, steer it onto the runway, let down the wings and take off. It needs about 450 metres of runway, has a maximum speed of 190km/h and a range of 800 kilometres.

The company has a model of the vehicle and plans to build its first full-size version in two years. It hopes to fill initial orders by the end of the decade.

Since Glenn Curtiss in 1917 created the Autoplane — the first car designed to fly, which failed to get airborne and didn't attract investors — flying cars have been considered risky, elusive ventures.

Terrafugia will seek $US50 million during the next three to five years to get the craft into production. But it was turning down investment offers until it gauged demand for the flying car, Alex Min, vice-president of marketing, said.

The company will begin taking orders for the Transition in July, and is targeting private pilots. There are 225,000 licensed private pilots and 87,000 students with flying permits in the US.

"We can find 400 people that would buy a cool toy, but do we have 4000 people?" Mr Min said. "I think we do, but we can't be sure."