Yeah, JPL, about 15 years ago. He measured something, and was conservative with the paper, but a journo got his hands on it from a leak at nature, the papers ran with "Flying cars!!!!", and the rest, like his reputation, is history.

There was a half hearted attempt http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/2001/PV2001_3363.pdf

However, it wasn't an identical attempt in terms of materials, process, etc...so I'm not sure it really counts.

This might make for some interesting reading: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.0958.pdf