a garage with a turn table

[1jjpop]

I was raised in a small town in central Iowa, we had a guy built a good size garage beside his house. when done they come and put in a turn table to drive on to. He would drive his car in and push a button and it would turn his car around. and he would drive out to the street. It was neat in the 50's. Never seen many of them.

 

[gtivr4]

So he doesn't have to back out? I suppose there are situations where backing out of the driveway is next to impossible for space/traffic reasons. You would have to allocate a lot more space in the garage though since it would have to be on a circle, and pretty long (18-20' diameter maybe)

 

[kspwski]

The title of this thread caught my eye, as I'd only heard of this setup once before. I grew up about 20 minutes away from said small town! I've never seen the turntable in action. I think it was more of a novelty over necessity thing, right?

 

[CARS]

Didn't they put one in Jay Leno's garage on one of those DIY Garage Makeover shows??

 

[CARS]

Yep: http://www.diynetwork.com/home-improvement/garages-reinvented-goldberg-style/pictures/page-2.html

 

[Jagmandave]

There's a house in Sandy Eggo that has two turntables, for the couples matching Corvettes....

And on top of that, the whole house rotates too!

 

[NitroPress]

Batman... na na na na na na na NAA.... BATMAN!

 

[Ric in Richmond]

A friend of mine supplied the faux beams used in that Leno garage remodel. He and his company were invited to go to the filming of the show and see the garage ....and he passed on it!!!!

WHY????

I'd almost kill to go see Leno's garage...

 

[slopecarver]

I think the point of the OP is that a car never had to use reverse in a tiny drive, not to show off a fancy smansy car in a garage.

 

[Crusty Nut]

Also available in the 50's was a kit to convert the spare tire into a parking aid by lowering it down to the road, then pushing the car right or left.
see it here

 

[George in Rancho Cordova]

I saw one in a large house built in the 1920s.
The original driveway was long, steep, winding & narrow.
After the owner paid big bucks to have retaining walls built & truckloads of dirt hauled in, the driveway was large enough to park in & turn around in.

 

[Octarine]

There's a nice co op building on Lake Shore Drive that has one of those in the front of the building. Space is at a premium, no room for a large driveway.

 

[stripped]

If you parked a caddy in my neighborhood the car would be broken into and the spare stolen.

 

[nickleone]

The Sears Tower in Chicago has a turn table for freight trucks delivering.
40 footers. The truck drive in and it is turned to the available loading dock. Driver backs in.
To get out the truck pulls forward and the turn table positions it to leave.

It's not the Sears Tower now.

Nick

 

[fivefochevy]

Henry Ford built one in his home garage for his wife in the 20's or 30's I think. She was not very good at backing the car, so he built it for her as to not tear up the car or the garage...

 

[ForceFed70]

Turntables seem to be more popular in europe where they have busy streets and garages that almost touch the sidewalk.

 

[Voi]

My brother in law's company did the beam work for a large custom home in San Diego. There was a turn table in the garage that held at least two cars. There was also a huge panel of acrylic or polycarbonate in the ceiling so you could look down on the cars from the room above. I'll email him & see if I can get more details.

 

[GRX]

Oh, I thought you were talking about having an LP turntable in your garage to play records.

 

[brownbagg]

if you google garage turn tables, there are hundred of pictures. It not really a dumb idea. pretty clever I say

 

[Stuart in MN]

Didn't they put one in Jay Leno's garage on one of those DIY Garage Makeover shows??

Jay wrote in his monthly column in Octane magazine after the turntable was installed that it wasn't all that great...it took up a lot of space, and one day he was turning the car around and it caught the handlebar of one of his bikes, tipping it over.

I saw an interesting application in a video somewhere of a restored round barn that had probably 20 cars parked in a big circle around the perimeter, with a turntable in the middle - the owner would drive in, rotate the car the appropriate amount, and then park the car against the outside wall.

 

[rogsmart]

I've actually run across three of these in the San Francisco Bay area in twenty five years of working on old houses. All of them were manually operated. I would have loved to get to see the iron work structure in the pit under the actual turntable. Very cool stuff.

 

[Larwyn]

The only one I ever saw was at a parking garage in Tokyo back in the 70's. The driver would pull off the road onto the turn table, the turn table would then rotate 90 degrees, then the driver pulled into an elevator. Not sure if there were more turn tables involved as I never actually parked there, but I did watch several cars disappear into that elevator.

 

[JimVonBaden]

I could kind of see the use for it.

My driveway is narrow by the house, and the pad in front barely gives enough room to turn around.

Jim

 

[RHD 4 LIFE]

Found these!

 

[e-tek]

Jay wrote in his monthly column in Octane magazine after the turntable was installed that it wasn't all that great...it took up a lot of space, and one day he was turning the car around and it caught the handlebar of one of his bikes, tipping it over.

Figures - rich ******* gets super-garage makeover for free, then ******* about it and dumps the turntable. Obviously gets his clothes for free too as he doesn't seem to do laundry....

I could kind of see the use for it.

Jim

...and the other side of the coin: you need it, but have to pay for it, so you won't!

 

[Steves32]

I went to a friend of a friends garage a couple of years ago & he had one. Said he rarely used it.

 

[lsrx101]

A local fellow, Donald Brown (now deceased) had a rotating garage!

http://www.morningjournal.com/articles/2010/01/19/news/mj2173857.txt

Don was the inventor of the ubiquitous drop ceiling and an all around cool guy, by all accounts.
I had the pleasure of meeting him quite casually a couple of times in the mid 80s while helping a friend install some custom cut glass at his estate. A very unassuming and likeable fellow. Totally fascinating to talk to.
I ran into him later in about 1999 when he stopped by my table at a local restaurant and said "I think I know you. Tom, isn't it?" We chatted for a few minutes and went on our way.
I couldn't believe that he recognized my face after all that time, much less my name! Not your stereotypical "rich" guy.

 

[RVDan]

If my garage were big enough I would have already built a turntable in it. To make it work though the parking bay has to be as wide as the car is long. If I had that kind of space I'd have a driveway big enough to turn around in.

I could sure use it though, my street is relatively busy and the people who use it are generally ignorant and not wanting to give me enough space to back into or out of the driveway.

 

[e-tek]

A local fellow, Donald Brown (now deceased) had a rotating garage!

http://www.morningjournal.com/articles/2010/01/19/news/mj2173857.txt

Don was the inventor of the ubiquitous drop ceiling and an all around cool guy, by all accounts.
I had the pleasure of meeting him quite casually a couple of times in the mid 80s while helping a friend install some custom cut glass at his estate. A very unassuming and likeable fellow. Totally fascinating to talk to.
I ran into him later in about 1999 when he stopped by my table at a local restaurant and said "I think I know you. Tom, isn't it?" We chatted for a few minutes and went on our way.
I couldn't believe that he recognized my face after all that time, much less my name! Not your stereotypical "rich" guy.

Thanks for sharing that - very interesting. He had the near PERFECT life: a GREAT life and quick death. (No one has a 'perfect' life, I see his son died too early).

 

[HOTFR8]

http://www.turntables.com.au/ This company makes them big enough to turn a complete truck. Must be fantastic for delivery drivers in places that are hard to reverese into.

 

[kbs2244]

There are company's that make them.

http://www.turntables.com.au/Pages/Products/Truck_Turntables.aspx

 

[HOTFR8]

There are company's that make them.

http://www.turntables.com.au/Pages/Products/Truck_Turntables.aspx

I posted that earlier.

 

[kbs2244]

So you did.
Sorry about that.

I cannot find any links about the one in the Sears Tower.
Can someone share?

 

[CreekWV]

Mr. Brown's home near Cleveland is for sale. $19,500,000 asking price. I think you can see a turntable in picture number 44.
Very, very unique home.

http://cnnmoney.trulia.com/property/photos/3062327422-5605-W-Lake-Rd-Vermilion-OH-44089#item-43

 

[NUTTSGT]

I cannot find any links about the one in the Sears Tower.
Can someone share?

I was wondering if somebody would link some pics.

 

[ghlkal]

This is a really interesting thread. You find the coolest stuff on GJ

 

[1jjpop]

Are you talking about Lohrville,Iowa

 

[1jjpop]

The title of this thread caught my eye, as I'd only heard of this setup once before. I grew up about 20 minutes away from said small town! I've never seen the turntable in action. I think it was more of a novelty over necessity thing, right?

Turn Table in Lohrville,Iowa

 

[1948]

i know a guy who has one with 2 levels. he has a small collection of cars and he turns it to pick the car he wants to drive that day. built into the side of a hill. the lower one goes out the back, and the upper one goes out the top on the other side. in the middle is a little spiral stair case and a soda bar. its rather impressive! havent been there in years.....

 

[mtnwalton]

We built a 46' diameter "doughnut" turntable with 36 pie sections for a recent stage production. The surrounding stage sections were built the same height of course. Not really relevant I know, but FYI there is a lot of engineering that goes into the fabrication because of yearly disassembly and reassembly. We used a very large variable speed drive and gearbox with roller chain on the perimeter. I can't imagine building one unless it is indoors