Future products

Boris Bilinsky

Francisco Mujica

Syd Mead

Retrofuture concept for a gigantic passenger train, introduced in 1947 (Note the spacious interiors and huge bed options)

 LIFE MAgazine 1, National Geographic, November 1939

This robot seem to be enjoying its babysitting responsibilities

Futuristic dream of giant airships carried on in Communist publications well into the 1960s: here is a 1962 Nuclear Airship concept from the "Smena" magazine:

Wow, THIS what I call a colossal flying machine! This concept from 1850 could carry in very limited comfort all these crowds of people and was powered by a mysterious "ether-drive" (whatever this is)

The Joueuse de Tympanon was built in 1772 (watch video) and presented to Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, then later restored by Robert Houdin in 1864. Houdin was renowned as an inventor, clockmaker and even as a magician, creating many mechanical marvels of his own. Some figures often simply mimicked the actions in time with a musical box inside the machine, but this automaton really plays the instrument. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75CXFwgslsY

From Germany, this small wooden puppet depicting a monk also dates from the mid sixteenth century and has a lever and a mechanism for the figure’s joints (below left). On the right is the Italian female lute player automaton, which dates from the same period:

An Iron Monster, framed in a cloud of billowing white sails, or looming through the hellish black smoke - this was the ultimate Victorian luxury Trans-Atlantic liner, affectionately called the "great babe" by its eccentric designer:

Brunel never completely recovered from his injuries, but instead of retiring to dreams of steam-driven wonders, Brunel went on to build everything from immense bridges to the advanced (but unsuccessful) "atmospheric caper" pneumatic railway (more info). Here is a similar creation - "The Pneumatic Passenger Railway", 1867 by Alfred Ely Beach :

Edith Nesbit, publ. by Ernest Nister, London, 1896