I didn't vote on your comment - your fail claim I would have downvoted, but I loved your link. Maybe you should have commented them separately if you wanted better feedback.
The point I was making was about beauty of design, not on the technology, which is where I think the Beetle/jet combo fails, and the handmade, beautifully crafted bicycle/pulse jet excels.
Although you could propose that the Beetle follows the Corbusian 'form follows function' ethos, the end result taking it's shape from it's purpose so elegantly illustrated by the original Beetle itself, strapping a whopping great jet to it does not.
The bicycle on the other hand, has obviously been lovingly crafted to be an aesthetic whole, even though two disparate technologies have been employed - therefore = win.
You could of course argue that Corbusier didn't follow his own ethos and 'fie rules' either though.
I actually think that the Beetle/jet combination is a very appropriate metaphor for many types of technology we use.
"Here's thing A, which only does X, if we add thing B to it, it now does XYZ, just not very efficiently, and it looks awful"
It's a lot easier to industrially design/engineer a bike than a car. The work you're suggesting probably would have dwarfed the actual jet-engineering. However, unlike jet bikes, we see real jet cars all the time—being raced for the land speed record. The fact that it's possible to add this after-the-fact to a car you own was the novel property here, not the combination of jet engine with car.
