Just had a thought for your friday car posts - how about "Cars that did not have Internal Combustion Engines"?
Which I thought was an excellent suggestion, except that I couldn't come up with a whole 10 vehicles, so I modified it to "non-traditional" engines. So here's my (and Borepatch's) list of Top Ten Non-Traditionally-powered Vehicles:
1. Mazda RX7. Wankel Rotary engine, certainly the most famous of these configurations.
2. Chrysler turbine. Previously discussed in the line-up of Cool Chryslers, the turbine - while never a full-on production car - did see limited consumer use.
3. Tesla Roadster. First production electric capable of highway speeds, the Tesla Roadster also boasts an impressive 0-60 time of 3.7 seconds.
4. Stanley Steamer. Yes, there really were cars that ran on steam power like the old riverboats. No, they weren't common. Yes, Jay Leno does own one that he drives in LA...
5. Rover Jet gas turbine. One of the many post WWII designs in England, it was a prototypical design based on the Power Jet designed by Frank Whittle.
6. ThrustSSC. How's about a twin Rolls Royce turbofan-powered jetcar that's capable of breaking the sound barrier? Yeah, pretty freakin' cool...
7. Blue Flame. Ah, yes, rocket power. Scourge of the Bonneville Salt Flats, the Blue Flame held the land-speed record for nearly three decades.
8. Honda Civic GX. Yes, there is a Honda Civic that runs on natural gas. No, I won't get into jokes based on beans...
9. Lunar rover. Here's one that's literally out of this world. Okay, so it cost $38 million dollars and had a top speed of 11 MPH. That's still enough for a lunar record...
10. Citroen GSA. Leave it to the French to screw up the rotary engine...
So there's the list of non-traditionally powered vehicles. We had to go into experimental prototypes, century-old technology, and alternative fuel vehicles to get there, but get there we did.
What other types of propulsion systems are there?
That is all.
20 comments:
Well Fred Flinstone drove his car with his feet.....
I remember visiting Big Daddy Don Garlits Drag Racing Museum in Ocala FL and he had a compressed air powered drag car. When you go to FL later on it's worth the side trip to his museum.
It was easy to find a parking space with the lunar buggies.
;-)
Jay,
I'll be today's pedantic jackass. Strictly speaking, the Wankel engine *is* a type of internal combustion engine. What the wankel lacks is pistons -- it is not a PISTON engine.
- Brad
I always thought the wood gasification conversions during WWI and WWII were pretty cool. Something I need to research further, I think powering my Ram that way would be pretty Mad Maxish!
Perhaps I didn't make it clear. We *started* with a list of non-internal-combustion engines, but changed it to "non-traditional" engines when I couldn't come up with 10 non-IC...
And Borepatch, the lunar rover was the one vehicle on the list guaranteed to be operated without road rage!
Note to self. Self, read the whole post before commenting. I stand corrected.
- Brad
There's the Obamamobile. It runs on hope and change. It's a bitch to drive though... it pulls hard to the left.
My favorite was from Mad Magazine circa 1980.
The one time use only external combustion engine.
There are a few hydrogen-powered cars in proto-type.
Honda and Toyota at least.
But those don't belong here, they're inherently crap.
It takes gasoline to make electricity, which means there is a drop in efficiency going from gasoline to electricity, then from electricity to hydrogen then from hydrogen to power your vehicle, so instead of losing efficiency once (running a gas engine), you lose it three times.
Brilliant!
I once saw an operational Stanley Steam car driving around at a car show. It was an impressive sight, and an even more impressive sound when they used the steam whistle.
There were other Mazdas that had rotary engines, an uncle of mine drove one and it was nothing but crap to own. He lived in Jackson, Miss. and had to drive all the way to Birmingham, Alabama to have work done on the engine after he was able to get it running well enough to get there.
Arctic Cat also made a Waankel engined snowmobile in the 70's. Friend of mine owned one....sounded funny, but got around nicley.
Note to self spelling suffers when drinking scotch...hic..
Years ago _Analog_ magazine had an article by a man who owned a Stanley Steamer. It made me want one. What killed it was the limited production (needed high end machining), a campaign by the auto industry to kill it (they claimed the steamers would explode) and one of the developers was killed trying to set speed records.
One more: land sailer.
KTM or Zero electric supermotos and MX bikes: not four-wheeled, but certainly powered by "non-traditional" engines. And they look like a giggle. :)
HaRUMPH!!!
The Mazda RX-7 was a Johnny-come-lately. The FIRST Wankel-powered Mazda was the RX-2.
Why, yes, I did own one. How did you guess?
In the late 1990's:
GM had the EV1 electric car. They also had and electric S10 (E10)they sold as fleet vehicles.
Toyota had an electric RAV4.
Honda had the EVPlus.
Ford had an electric Ranger.
There may have been others.
All of them were motivated primarily by a California Air Resources Board requirement that 10% (if I remember correctly) of the major automakers' fleets had to be zero emission vehicles. Eventually the requirement was rescinded and all of the vehicles were discontinued.
We have a collector up here that has a running Steamer. Those cars set world speed records. Had to wave off a test driver on the Daytona beaches when the front end started to lift, i.e., blowover like a racing boat.
When pressure tested to failure, the boilers passed all available pressure gauges before blowing. Moonshiners loved 'em. Quiet, don'tcha know. To see a stripped chassis is to know simplicity.
How can you forget the Urban Legendary JATO kid?
Of course,Mythbusters said...
BUT
I happen to know that the Astrodyne JATO used in the F-100 Super Sabre Zero Length program made
150,000 pounds of momentary thrust-
enough to launch the plane off of a specially prepared semi trailer!
(see YouTube for original B&W test footage!)
If he could have found one of those JATO bottles instead of the puny little thousand pound units used in the C-130's
(they require eight of them),
maybe it might have happened after all...
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