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As those of you curious enough to click on today's Google Doodle know, it's the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. We're all familiar with his work, at least in holiday-time Muppet-based formats, but I'm sure the real question we all have about Dickens is "what would he have driven?" More »
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The British team attempting to break the long-standing steam-powered land speed record have beaten the 127 MPH mark, unofficially. They still need a visit from the FIA and another pair of runs to make it official. More »
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It seems like the team of British speed freaks aiming at one of the oldest land speed records on the books is one step closer after successfully testing their steam-powered speedster. More »
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The City of Berkeley is now a maximum security statist dystopia… Cars are illegal… Petroleum is a controlled substance… Now, geeks and gearheads unite to escape from Berkeley by any non-petroleum means necessary! That's right, a 600-mile race in vehicles not only prohibited from burning petroleum-based fuel but prohibited from buying any fuel whatsoever along the way- it's all got to be obtained free along the route. Steam-powered cars burning wood chips left behind by tree-cutting crews! Gasifiers converting dead possums and heaps of fast-food wrappers into go-go-gas! Batteries charged by sweet-talking locals into allowing power-outlet access! Mules eating grass! Whatever it takes! The race starts tomorrow morning and I'll be making the jaunt from nearby Alameda to check it out- come back tomorrow and you'll see some of these dystopia-fleeing machines. More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, we saw a cat-piss-enhanced, meth-head-damaged, Camaro-suspended '53 Chevy take a beating in the Choose Your Eternity poll at the hands of the Jaguar-powered, bugs-in-face customized '51 Chevy. But you ask me, all these internal-combustion vehicles are getting a trifle monotonous. We need to change things up today, by looking at a pair of external-combustion vehicles. Yes, steam-powered cars! Thanks (and a PCH Tipster T-shirt) go to dwegmull for finding these cars for us. More »
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Overseas, Honda is looking at different ways to generate power for hybrid engines. The latest technique involves a Rankine cycle-co-generation unit, which can be used to produce energy from the heat produced from an engine. In tests, a Honda Stream outfitted with a Rankine unit generated three times as much electricity using the engine heat than just the regenerative braking system alone. More »
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The cats over at Dark Roasted Blend have put together a collection of some forgotten leviathans of transportation history - steam powered trucks. Ranging from modified steam tractors with a deck on top, to full-on, four axle workhorses. We're loath to admit we never even heard of any of these makers; Fowler who? Sentinal what? How about a Mann Wagon? This is especially embarrassing since a few summers of our youth were spent putzing around with 90 year old Case steam tractors and still not a peep about steam trucks. Could be they were mostly built in old Blighty. Could also be that the possibility for hooning in an 80 year old steam powered truck is pretty low. We're wondering if they should become part of our ever expanding product range.[DarkRoastedBlend.com] More »
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The conclusion reached after hearing a team of wacky Brits are looking to set the 100-year unbroken land speed record for steam powered vehicles is probably something like "there's a land speed record for just about everything." You'd probably be right, and proof of that assertion's coming in the spring of next year in Verneuk Pan, a lake bed in South Africa's Northern Cape — where the all-British team (complete with a "lady driver") will seek the un-Hammond-like speed of 200 mph as the champ speed of all things steam. That would beat the conductors cap off the old official record set at 127.659 mph by Fred Marriot's Stanley Steamer in 1906. But in our minds it still falls short of the old unofficial record set back in 1928, by a little cartoon duck named "RailCar Daffy" — unfortunately, his run of 382.1 mph was not sanctioned by the F d ration Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the world motorsport's governing body, which requires an average of two runs in opposite directions — as well as requiring non-fictional drivers to not infringe on any of Disney's non-fictional water-vehicle driving characters. – Ray Wert More »
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Pistonheads updates us on the British Steam Car Challenge, a UK project to break the land-speed record for steam-powered cars — which has held since 1906 when Fred Marriott took a Stanley Steamer on to Daytona Beach and hit 127.7 mph (barely missing the a stand selling individual servings of Frump's Gelatinous Rum Beverages). The current team plans to break the 200 mph mark in the Inspiration — a sleek racer powered by a steam-driven turbine. Though, according to PH, members have recently had to completely rework the drivetrain due to an efficiency problem, the team wants to break the record in time for its 100th anniversary this year. Tea's on them. More »
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It began with the first neanderthal who lit his mammoth-bone pipe over a methane vent in LaBrea and rocketed himself into Laguna Hills: Human propulson. After that, man developed more advanced forms of transport propelled by steam, electricity, coal, wombat feces, petroleum, turbines, french-fry oil and hydrogen — and hybrid-drive combinations of those sources. Now, two centuries of man's propulsive experiments will be on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles starting later this week. The exhibition will feature an array of electric, hydrogen and turbine vehicles from history, and new propulsion technologies that may emerge in the future. Sadly, the Laguna Hills Express didn't survive the ice age. More »
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