Steam-Powered Car Breaks Record in Mojave
Filed Under: Environmental News on August 29, 2009
I read about this in Wired’s Autopia and had to talk about it. I’ll admit, it’s not really “green” or “enviornmentally friendly” or anything, but it’s friggin cool as hell!
When I think of steam-powered cars, I think of the old jalopies like you might see in the Smithsonian or Jay Leno’s Garage. Cool, sure, but fast? Comon. I’ve seen more than one steam-powered tractor at the local shows and I know that, if they move at all, it’s not more than a couple of miles an hour. I don’t know why farmers bothered buying them back in the day, since they took a cord of wood to get anywhere. Even gasoline isn’t that inefficient.
So the original record for fastest steam-powered car was set in 1906 when a car went 127.6 miles per hour. Can you imagine doing that in a giant tea pot with wheels? Can you comprehend the kind of pressure that must be required to push a car that fast? Imagine if it sprunk a leak and exploded. Holy cripes!
Well, that was 1906.
On August 25, 2009, Team Steam with their car Inspiration launched a steam-powered speed racer in the Mojave Desert that broke that record at 139.6 miles per hour. They weren’t done yet, though. The driver topped a maximum speed of 151.085 later in the day! Of course, the average is what matters in this case (two runs at 1 mile each, one each direction), which in this case was 139.6mph. Still…
That’s right. Over a hundred and fifty miles an hour in a car powered by really hot water. Imagine that! Would you be willing to strap yourself into a giant boiler with wheels and hope for the best?
Here’s the car itself, hood up and guts exposed. Pretty complicated machine for running on technology that’s more than a century old now. Isn’t it?
Photo from Wired Autopia
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Comments (2)
Wow, that is very cool. I cannot imagine going that fast in a car with a giant radiator on it.
Awesome. Thanks, Dale. Ya, I think I’d be a little nervous about the thing. Looks pretty complicated, though, and it says it has multiple boilers. More bombs to go off, I’d say. lol