Russian inventor at the head of world progress: the history of forgotten gyrocars

"To explain the essence of gyrokars as simply as possible, you need to start with a children's toy - yula. Technically, yula is a flywheel capable of holding the kinetic energy stored in it for a long time, maintaining a horizontal position and serving as an engine for driving various mechanisms. The kit with a fast-growing flywheel was named gyroscope (from the Greek "gyro" - wheel) and served as a source of energy for unique gyrokars and even gyrobuses.
The championship in the use of flywheels in transport belongs to Russia. Back in the 18th century, the inventor Ivan Kulibin equipped his "scooter" with a horizontal flywheel, which collected energy on the descents and then helped the "driver" on the ascents. In 1860, the idea was developed by communications engineer Karl Schubersky, who proposed a carriage for rail freight, which he called a flywheel.
In 1905, an Englishman Frederick Lancaster received a patent for the simplest four-wheeled cart with a vertical flywheel and mechanical wheel drive. Later, the American company Gyroscope Car unsuccessfully tried to set up the production of gyrocars without a clutch and gearbox, which were not different in externally from ordinary cars. They were equipped with a 16-strength petrol engine to disperse a horizontal flywheel and chain-wheeled gears.

The legendary Russian gyro player of Shilovsky
The world's first and only full-fledged self-propelled non-rail car with a gyroscope was developed and built by a famous Russian statesman and a talented self-taught inventor Count Petr Petrovich Shilovsky. It was a "richly gifted man with enormous ambition," Peru owned many original projects and monographs on theory, design and application of gyrocars. He first brought his idea of a flywheel to life in 1911, presenting a model of a single-rail railway with three wagons equipped with rotating flywheels.
The next year, Shilovsky undertook the realization of his main invention - a two-wheeled single-wheeled car with a flywheel, which provided it stability both while driving and in the parking lot.
The machine was too complex, expensive and incomprehensible didn't receive the support of the Imperial Government, and in 1912 the inventor went to England. There, the assembling of the Gyrocar gyroscopic car was undertaken by Wolseley Tool and Motor Car from Birmingham, and subsequently the Shilovsky gyrocar abroad was always considered to be a development and priority property of the United Kingdom.
Work on the gyro car began in October 1912 with a test of the engine and suspension spring. The chassis was ready on July 14, 1913, and the complete car appeared in the deep autumn of the same year. On November 27, he was started, the side support wheels were raised, and he safely drove a few meters without rolling over. On April 28, 1914, the first public display of a car with passengers at the speed of a pedestrian took place in central London, demonstrating its phenomenal stability.
Shilovsky's car was a large, complex and heavy machine weighing about three tons with an open four-seater body on a long chassis. In its front was installed a regular four-cylinder engine with 24 strength from the Wolseley 16/20 HP. From it torque to the rear lead wheel was transmitted through the clutch, four-speed gearbox, chain and gimbal gears, and a worm reducer. The front suspension looked like a developed motorcycle fork, the rear wheel was suspended on two longitudinal console springs.
At the same time, the engine was driving an electric generator that supplied current to an electric motor, which in 8–10 minutes disperse a horizontal forged flywheel with a diameter of just over one meter to 3000 rpm. It weighed 610 kilograms, was 12 centimeters thick and was placed between the seats in the middle of the car.
Gyroscope control provided a vertical incline of the flywheel and a confused system of pendulum, gear sectors, and ball sensors that caused the upper end of the flywheel shaft to tilt forward or backward. When the turnover fell, the dispersed electric motor was automatically turned on, returning the car to a vertical position.
At the beginning of World War I, Shilovsky returned to Russia, and in 1915, "in order to ensure safety during bombing", the English "securely hid" the gyrocar, simply dropping it into a hole dug near a nearby railway station. And for 20 plus years they forgot about him.
In his homeland, Shilovsky tried to organize the construction of a single-rail railway, but in 1922 its funding was blocked, and Shilovsky left for England forever. At his insistence, in 1938 the semi-decayed car was exhumed, restored and placed in the Wolseley museum. Ten years later, she was sent for scrap. "
https://www.kolesa.ru/article/russkiy-izobretatel-vo-glave-mirovogo-progressa-istoriya-zabytykh-girokarov
The last two photos: The exhumation of the legendary gyrocar, lying in the ground on 23, 1938.