Flying sports car hides its wings as production gets closer

If you have ever been stuck in traffic wishing could sprout wings, Samson Sky has been working on something pretty close. Its Switchblade flying car can drive out of your garage and take you to a nearby airport. Once there, the wings come out, the tail extends and the vehicle becomes an airplane. You heard right, an airplane. After landing, everything folds back inside so you can drive the rest of the way.

That idea has been around for years. What makes Switchblade worth another look right now is that Samson says it has secured an $80 million investment from Dubai-based Matin Group. Samson plans to use the funding to help move the project toward U.S. production. The company still needs another $20 million to fully fund its current production plan. That new backing gets the Switchblade closer. But what really caught my attention is how much Samson has changed since we first watched this take off.

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The latest Switchblade design looks much more like a car when you are using it on the road. Samson says the wings, tail and propeller are now fully enclosed inside the vehicle during driving mode. That is a major change from the earlier design that completed its first flight in November 2023. When you reach an airport, the wings extend and the tail moves into position for flight. Samson says the transformation from driving mode to flying mode takes about three minutes.

After you land, the process reverses. The flight hardware folds back inside the body before you continue the trip by road. Samson says that setup allows the Switchblade to fit inside a standard garage while also protecting the flight surfaces when the vehicle is being driven or stored. There is still a runway involved, though. The Switchblade does not take off vertically from your driveway. You drive it to an airport, transform it into flight mode and take off from there.

We first covered the Switchblade after its . The prototype flew from Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Washington. Since then, Samson has kept working on the version it hopes to put into customers' hands. The company has changed the design and increased the size of its engine. Samson says it plans to use three production prototypes for more testing around the end of 2026 or beginning of 2027.

So while we have already seen a Switchblade get off the ground, the version heading toward production has changed since that 2023 flight. That is why I am especially interested in what happens next. I want to see the latest Switchblade take to the air and show us what this new design can actually do.

Samson is targeting some attention-grabbing performance numbers. The company currently lists a maximum airspeed of 190 mph and a maximum flying range of 450 miles. It lists a maximum road speed of 100 mph. Samson also lists a 160 mph cruise speed. However, its FAQ says that anticipated figure still needs verification during production-prototype flight testing.

The Switchblade uses a hybrid-electric drivetrain. A gasoline engine powers a generator, which supplies electri