Written on May 14, 2008 – 9:40 am | by Bogdan Alex |

I’ve always wanted a car that can transform into some sort of aircraft. The car would be useful for city tasks, while the plane comes in handy for traveling purposes. As it appears, Terrafugia has been developing an airplane/motorcar hybrid for quite some time now, but all we could see were some 3D animations and tech demos. Just recently, the company has announced that their hybrid car is set to be released this summer, sometime in July.

A team of ten works in turbo mode to ready the hybrid called “Transition” for its debut at this year's AirVenture. Terrafugia hopes to impress everyone present at the convention with their futuristic "roadable aircraft." As the vehicle can both drive and fly, it'll have to pass safety regulations from both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Assuming everything goes according to paper, Terrafugia expects to deliver the first vehicles to customers as soon as 2009, while mass production would most likely happen around 2012. From the provided picture, we can see that the hybrid is pretty compact and that makes me wonder about the actual flying autonomy of the Transition. If it can’t fly too much, then they should at least make it as fast as Bugatti’s Veyron or the SSC Ultimate Aero.