Here it is, the car of your dreams:

It’s called the Terrafugia Transition, and it technically isn’t a car. It’s a “roadable aircraft.” That means it’s really an airplane that you can drive on the street like a car and even park in your garage, but it’s not — I repeat, not — a “flying car.”

Now that we’ve got that straight, I’m going to call it a “flying car” for the rest of this post.

When my mom and dad were growing up, a trip to the moon in a rocket was science fiction. Then in 1969, man got in a rocket and went for a stroll on the moon. It seems that if man can imagine it, eventually it becomes reality (except world peace, sadly), and we’ve been imagining flying cars for a long time. The Transition is not exactly the compact, wingless model I was expecting from watching The Jetsons, but it’s impressive nevertheless.

Also impressive is the price, anticipated to be $194,000. They won’t be ready to ship until 2011, but you can reserve one now for a $10,000 deposit. I’m sure the price will come down, though. And when it does, I wonder what effect it will have on American life.

The Transition runs on regular unleaded gasoline. You don’t have to rent a hangar to store it. And it doubles as your ground transportation. The cost of owning your own personal aircraft will be reduced to about the same as the cost of owning a car… albeit a very, very expensive car. But given the size and prices of SUVs these days, there’s not that much of a difference anymore. If you want to some minute upgrades for your vehicle, you can start with parts like a car sunshade.

So, what if these catch on? What will that do to our large suburban and rural lots? Will the installation of private runways be all the rage? How would it impact commercial air transportation if frequent fliers decide to use their own personal flying car in order to avoid delays and invasion of privacy at airports? Will local commuter air service disappear like local commuter rail did decades ago?

What about the increase in air traffic? What if, instead of 10 planes with 60 passengers each in the sky, we end up with 300 flying cars with two passengers each? And what if those cars can take off and land on any private runway? Suddenly, we could all be living next to an airport, and there would be no way to get away from it. Maybe the FAA would establish highways in the sky, a la The Jetsons, in order to relegate flight to certain approved airspace. I would imagine emergency landing strips would have to be provided along these routes in case your flying car develops a problem. (Incidentally, the Transition comes with an optional full-vehicle parachute.)

And think about how far away you could live from where you work. That would give “suburbia” a whole new definition. For instance, commuting from a home in Peoria to a job in Chicago would be a breeze in a flying car, effectively making Peoria a new suburb of Chicago. Of course, Hersey Hawkins already believes that (when asked where Bradley University is located during an appearance on Wheel of Fortune in the late ’90s, he replied, “just outside of Chicago”).

According to the Terrafugia website, it only takes about 20 hours of training of get a Sport Pilot license, which is the minimum required to fly the Transition. Who will be the first person in Peoria to get one?