A new start up is gearing up to host a flying car race by the end of the year, which could be a glimpse into the future of Formula One.
Airspeeder has been developing cars which hover above ground, using drone technology, and it hopes to hold its full scale race in South Australia.
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It might seem futuristic, but the company's goals are more than within reach, and one of the company's co-founders has said that 2020 was a huge year for the industry.
Despite coronavirus restrictions and the disruption caused globally, Matt Pearson thinks that Australia could well be the birthplace of the new sport.
Speaking to abc, Pearson said: "Australia's been a great place to test drones, even Google and Amazon have chosen Australia for their test programs because of fairly advanced regulations."
He added: "There's an opportunity now for Australia to do that for the urban air mobility market, air taxis and flying cars."
With huge expanses of open desert, the country has been the perfect place to trial the new technology that Airspeeder uses.
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He said: "Le Mans, Bathurst, Monaco, there are these amazing places where we've seen the birth of new sports.
"This is such a great place for us to basically create that next iconic place for racing."
The cars themselves are as innovative as they are futuristic. They use drones to lift the chassis, which resembles a Formula One race car.
Pearson says that they're cheaper and more reliable than helicopters.
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He explained: "A helicopter has thousands of moving parts, and a single point of failure which makes them very expensive to maintain.
"An air taxi has about 16 moving parts and about half of those are redundant, so it's a very safe, very stable platform."
He added: "Taxis are a great thing to do with this technology, but we also think that there's a great place to fuel innovation in racing."
But Airspeeder cars are built like race vehicles, with the company hoping to hold their exhibition race in Coober Pedy.
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You might have heard of the town, which is in northern South Australia. It's famous for its opals as well as its resident's houses, which are underground.
The town is usually reliant on tourism, which has, of course, taken a blow throughout the coronavirus pandemic, but there are hopes that the race could give it the boost it needs.
Featured Image Credit: Airspeeder