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Designers[]

Reed Richards: Earth vehicles.

Human Torch (Johnny Storm): Fantasticar - model 2.

Unknown Skrull designers: Skrull craft.

History[]

Over the years, the Fantastic Four have used many vehicles, most of which were designed by Reed Richards. Generally they have been kept in the hangar bay, but for a time some of the larger ships were kept on Stingray's Hydro-Base to comply with FAA regulations.

In addition to the Fantastic Four's own vehicles they also have in their possession an assortment of alien craft which was either given to them or stolen by the group during their adventures.

Vehicle List[]

Marvel-1: Ship that first carried Reed, Ben, Sue and Johnny "to the stars." It had (obviously) inadequate shielding and was destroyed in a crash landing outside Albany, NY.

Fantasticar Models I-III & Model 1B: Actually refers to a series of vehicles rather than one singular one. Each one of the series could break into four separate vehicles for individual flight. These are not used as much any more since, most of the FF's members have their powers as a more readily available source of transportation.

  • Model 1 - More commonly known as the Flying Bathtub. It can carry about 1200 pounds at up to 60 mph for 200 miles. It breaks into four compartments capable of 30 mph speeds for up to 100 miles. It is generally used for inner-city transportation and kept around almost solely for sentimental purposes. It was the Fantastic Four's first vehicle after they became a super-powered group.


Fantasti-Car MK II from Fantastic Four Vol 1 12 0001
  • Model 2 - Designed and maintained almost entirely by Johnny Storm. Each of its four modules could carry two passengers at up to 350 mph for about 400 miles. Combined, the ship has an airspeed of 550 mph, a ceiling of 30,000 feet and a range of 1000 miles.


  • Model 3 - Enclosed and more powerful version of Model 2. Its airspeed is 1000 mph, ceiling 40,000 feet, and range 1500 miles.
  • Model 1B - Reed designed another Fantasticar in the Franklinverse. This version is very much like the Model 3 listed above both in design and capabilities.
Fantasti-Copter from Fantastic Four Vol 1 3 0001

Fantasti-Copter: Probably the least known FF vehicle. It could carry up to 6 people about 200 miles at 150 mph. It was quickly made obsolete by the Model 2 Fantasticar.

Sky-Cycles: Series of short-range vehicles. These had very little design to them; they were essentially a fuel tank, engines and a seat. There have been several one-man versions and one four-passenger one.

Pogo-Plane:FF's first long-range vehicle. It was mainly jet-powered, but also had backup rockets for small space jaunts. It had special landing gear to keep it upright in nearly any terrain and was capable of VTOL. It's main advantage over the Fantasticars was extra cargo room. Reed eventually doubled its top speed to 1200 mph and increased its range 25 percent to nearly 21,000 miles. It was recently modified and redesigned to reflect more contemporary design standards.

Reducta-Craft: Never really been used as a means of transportation, but could have been. It was a tight, bottle-shaped vehicle used to enter the Microverse. Most of its bulk was taken up by a shrinking device and an engine was added for navigation within the Microverse. Oddly enough, once in the Microverse the FF usually explored on foot.

Intercontinental Passenger Missile': An ICBM that Reed had modified for either short space flights or fast transportation to remote parts of Earth. It has enough cargo space to hold up to one ton and eight passengers. Like the Pogo-Plane, it is capable of VTOL and uses a similar set of landing gear.

Negative Zone Explorer - Model 1: Used in the Fantastic Four's first real exploration of the Negative Zone. It's power is drawn from the anti-matter within the Negative Zone and has space for (barely) four passengers. The Negapod seems to be an updated version of the same craft.

Magnetic Wave Rider,given to them,by the Black Panther.


Negapod: Designed with very similar design specifications to the Negative Zone Explorer, Model 1. This craft was destroyed by the the Nega-Explorers shortly after it's debut.

Rosebud II: The time-sled named after the famous Rosebud of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. It carried seven passengers and contained a time-machine very similar to H.G. Wells Time Machine'. While the original was confiscated by the Time Variance Authority, Reed has built another (Rosebud III) which was last seen on a snow-covered mountain in Latveria.[1]

Skrull starships: Often a favorite space vehicle of the Fantastic Four. I know of four the FF have used over the years.

Skrull-Ship (Water Tower) from Fantastic Four Vol 1 2 0003
  • Wooden Water Tower: Their first Skrull ship (which has not been seen in years) was actually a small four-passenger ferry shaped like a wooden water tower. It only has enough fuel for short trips to and from and orbiting mother ship.
  • Flying Saucer: The first saucer-shaped starship that the team received was given to them by Kurrgo after they managed to save the population of his homeworld, Planet X.[2] Although they knew it was capable of interstellar travel, the FF initially kept it as a memento of their adventure on that planet.[3] However, by the time they needed to use it to travel across intergalactic distances on a rescue mission to the Skrull planet Kral IV, the FF had begun to refer to it as a Skrull saucer,[4] something that was confirmed by other races. It was eventually revealed that Kurrgo had actually purchased the saucer from Skrulls which meant that it had been a Skrull saucer all along.[5] Side note: In some comics, several members of the FF refer to this starship as being the Skrull saucer that they captured from the Skrulls in their first encounter even though this is clearly not the case.
  • Starship: In a show of gratitude, a newly empowered Skrull Imperial, Prince Dezan, gave a starship to the FF as a gift. It had room for at least 20 passengers and four tons of cargo space. On-board navigation equipment is built in, so no pilot is needed. It uses a Hyperdrive engine that can transport it to a neighboring galaxy almost instantly and can travel at 1,000,000 mph in space or 10,000 mph in the atmosphere.
  • Stealth-Hawk: Their most recent Skrull ship was "borrowed" on a trip to the Skrull homeworld. Similar to the previous ship, but was designed more for battle than hauling cargo. Consequently, it has more armaments and defenses and less cargo room. It's name would imply that it has a cloaking device, but it has not been known to be employed.

Space Cruiser: Constructed in an attempt to rescue the real Alicia Masters from the Skrull homeworld. Reed had studied the ship the borrowed from Prince Dezan and built his own version based on his findings. Unfortunately, the Thinker had tampered with the plans for the radiation shielding and the ship disintegrated on the return trip to Earth.

Wormhole Shuttle:The FF used it briefly to follow and trap Hyperstorm. Although details of this vessel are sketchy, it can be assumed that it bears many attributes similar to Reed's Space Cruiser. While this ship remained intact for the duration of their adventure, it has not been seen since shortly before the attack of Onslaught. Presumably, Nathaniel Richards hid this ship with the rest of Four Freedoms Plaza's contents in the Negative Zone.

Excelsior: Reed designed a new star drive in the Franklinverse, . It is basically a more powerful version of the Pocket Rocket and has more shielding. It was the prototype of this vehicle (essentially a more crude and poorly shielded version of the Excelsior) that Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny gained their powers in.

Jump-Jet: Used by the FF in the Franklinverse. It seems to have similar flight abilities to the Model 3 Fantasticar but it is designed in a "U" shape. The ship crashed in the Himalayan Mountains near the Great Refuge.

Unknown Designation: Reed has acquired another ship, apparently similar to the Model 1 Fantasticar in capabilities, but designed more like a starship. This has gone as yet unnamed, but it was built using the resources of the Baxter Corporation.

Unknown Designation: The Franklinverse's first venture into the Negative Zone featured another new, unnamed vehicle. It's design specifications are likely to remain unknown, since it was destroyed by Blastaar.

Trivia[]

In the Fantastic Four film; Rise of the Silver Surfer we got to see the debut of the fantasticar.

Sources[]

Thanks to the guys at ffplaza.com and Marvel.com

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