In the mid-20th century, automakers were eager to capitalize on the science fiction craze, space exploration, and the Atomic Age to create concept cars that sparked the imagination. One of the most iconic examples is the AMC Astra-Gnome, designed by Richard Arbib in 1956. The car was marketed as The Time and Space Car, envisioning what automobiles might look like in the year 2000.
The September 3, 1956 issue of Newsweek featured a car on its cover—one like no other. The untrained eye might have mistaken it for a personal spaceship, similar to what The Jetsons would use a few years later.
Its official name is Astra-Gnome, and it was commissioned by American Motors Corporation to Richard Arbib, a designer whose ideas passed through many places, including the famous magazine Galaxy Science Fiction, where he created two illustrations for sci-fi giants like Isaac Asimov (C-Chute) and Robert A. Heinlein (The Year of the Jackpot).
The Astra-Gnome became a kind of canvas (built on the chassis of a 1955 Nash Metropolitan) that allowed Arbib to imagine how cars would be in the year 2000: a lot of aluminum, a transparent dome that gave the driver full visibility (and opened upward), a spacious interior (its width was 1.83 meters), customizable side panels, genuine leather upholstery, a celestial clock in the center of the dashboard, a high-fidelity audio system, and plenty of luggage space.
The prototype was very well received by the public at the 1956 International Auto Show, but AMC never had any intention of turning it into a production vehicle. The Astra-Gnome vanished for almost 25 years, until it was rediscovered in 1980. Thanks to an impeccable restoration process, it can now be admired at a museum in California.
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