Syd Mead's 1975 Playboy Land Yacht - Mac's Motor City GarageMac's Motor City Garage
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A luxury bachelor pad on wheels, Syd Mead’s Playboy Land Yacht was the ultimate motorized expression of the Playboy Lifestyle.
Playboy magazine, founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953, is no longer in print, alas. It ceased publication and went digital-only in 2020. But Playboy was not merely a magazine to Hefner and his audience, which at one point numbered seven million. Throughout its pages (between the lavish photos of nude and beautiful women) he promoted what he called the Playboy Lifestyle: a sybaritic and hyper-materialistic approach to living that meshed with the glossy advertisements, pitching luxury products from whiskey to watches. Naturally, automobiles were a key part of this scene, and Hefner bought in the top auto writers in the trade to talk cars, including Ken Purdy and Brock Yates, just to name a few.
Easily the most fabulous wheeled vehicle to appear in the pages of Playboy was a fictional one. For this dream machine, a virtual rolling penthouse, the magazine commissioned the artist, futurist, and automobile designer Syd Mead (see our feature on his Ford Ranger II project here). An ultra-luxurious six-wheeled motor home, it was presented in the June 1975 issue as the Playboy Land Yacht. And Land Yacht was probably a modest description. For sheer opulence it rivalled Hefner’s black Douglas DC-9 private jet, the Big Bunny.
Playboy readers of 1975 first drew their attention, no doubt, to the Land Yacht’s stateroom, which was lined with crushed velvet and included a television, movie projector, wet bar, and a bed measuring six by seven feet. They probably thought the full shower and rooftop lounge area were pretty cool, too.
Frankly, we’re more interested in the vehicle’s control system, which features a pair of aircraft-style joysticks for steering, throttle, and braking. Even more intriguing is the Land Yacht’s full self-driving capability, which the arrticle theorized could be accomplished with radar sensors and infared cameras. We wonder what Syd Mead, who passed away in 2019, would think about one more small part of his fantastic creative vision now starting to become a reality.
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One thought on “Syd Mead’s 1975 Playboy Land Yacht”
Nothing captured the smell of stale cig smoke like crushed velvet.
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