As long as we're indulging in wishful thinking, why bother with automobiles? Wy not the classic magic ring that transports tou to anyplace with a finger twist? Or if you're fascinated with shrinking, why not shrink the world so anyplace is easily available with a few steps?

This idea is not as crazy as it first appears, the US airforce designed an inflatable airplane back in the fifties. The idea was that it could be dropped in a small container to shot down pilots who could inflate it, attach a small engine and then fly out of the enemy territory.The program was canned when they discovered that it could be taken out with a bow and arrow. But getting back to the car, how do you compress an internal combustion engine into a mobile phone size and the fuel and fuel tank and all the other components? What about using a 3 dimensional printer to make a whole car whenever you need one? the US army use these type of printers to make spares for some of their trucks.

Of course, then, we have the problem of shrinking the three dimensional printer. I rather like the idea of having a small dingle dangle on my key chain that might, at my whim, be turned into an automobile, a jetairliner or a space shuttle fully fueled for a short excursion to the nearerplanets.

This isn't a very original idea. George Jetson had one of these and it was shown during the opening credits for every episode.

See Jetsons' car

I've always had a replicator sphere on my christmas list!

A small programmable hovering sphere, that converts relevent surrounding atoms into anything you want, controlled by my movement sensing piezo-armoured interfacing suit, with fish-eye lense 360 vision helmet and tea dispensing penguin side-kick!

It's been on the list for a while now, I'm starting to think it might not arrive :(

It's been on the list for a while now, I'm starting to think it might not arrive :(