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These omni-directional car wheels are basically witchcraft

Ever seen a car pivot in place before, without the use of wheel dollies?

Andrew Krok Reviews Editor / Cars
Cars are Andrew's jam, as is strawberry. After spending years as a regular ol' car fanatic, he started working his way through the echelons of the automotive industry, starting out as social-media director of a small European-focused garage outside of Chicago. From there, he moved to the editorial side, penning several written features in Total 911 Magazine before becoming a full-time auto writer, first for a local Chicago outlet and then for CNET Cars.
Andrew Krok

Normally, if you need to rotate a car in a small space, you get a set of wheel dollies that pick the car up off the ground, using very little human effort. But what if your car could do that on its own, without additional bits of kit? Say hello to the moderately terrifying Liddiard Wheel.

Gizmodo pointed our attention to the invention of William Liddiard, a man who was clearly tired of having to turn a car around. His creation, the aptly named Liddard Wheel, is a bolt-on that's capable of moving a car in any direction -- it'll even spin in place, like some sort of hellish top.

It's seriously creepy, watching a car move like that.

His system applies 24,000 pound feet of torque to his unique tire design, and each tire can move independently of the rest, making for some serious acrobatics. The wheels you see here are proof of concept, but he's looking to make a production run. For some of the bad parallel-parkers out there, this could be a godsend. Me? I still think it's witchcraft.