MIGHTY CAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 201, 25 August 1937, Page 9

MIGHTY CAR.

STREAMLINED GIANT. FISH-LIKE APPEARANCE. i MAMMOTH RECORD-BRF.AKER, (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, August 5. Behind the guarded doors of a Wolverhampton workshop there is nearing completion the mightiest thing on wheels that the world has ever seen. It is a giant streamlined car 36 feet long—the average car is 14ft—with two 3000 horse-power engines, eight wheels and hand-made tyres costing more than £100 apiece. Captain George Eyston is its designer. He is taking it to the salt beds near Salt Lake City, Utah, for an attempt on the land speed record. He hopes to reach the colossal speed of 400 m.p.h. Streamlined so that it gives the appearance of some enormous fish, the new car is twice as powerful as the Blue Bird, in which Sir Malcolm Campbell set up the existing record of 301 m.p.h. two years ago. It has four wheels at the front—like the bogy of an express locomotive—all of them connected to the steering wheel. The rear wheels are "twins" similar to those on a big lorry. Special brakes, like dry-plate clutch'". Operating over the whole area of the wheel, have been designed. To cool them — and enough. heat to boil 50 gallons of water is gene- > ° p rated in one appliaction of the brakes— i there is a huge centrifugal fan driven by - the engines. t Captain Eyston, who is 3S, is not a I rich man, but he has put the whole of f his private resources into this mammoth r record-breaker. He refuse? to say any--9 thing about it —"I'll talk after the record - jattempt has been made," lie tells iuquiIsitive friends.