ROCKET CARS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 195, 18 August 1928, Page 21 (Supplement)

ROCKET CARS

TESTS TO CONTINUE SPEEDBOATS BUILT ON SAME PRINCIPLE The wrecking of the Opel rocket car is not expected to terminate experiments in this direction, and the German firm has expressed an intention to demonstrate on Brooklands track. The car which has been used embodied the ideas of Max Valier, the astronomer who was responsible for the rather startling proposal to build a rocket projectile with which to reach the moon. Valier has been interested in rocket propulsion for some time, and it has been demonstrated that a steel encased rocket attains a speed of 650 m.p.h. after rising only 120 ft. from the ground. Violent acceleration is naturally a characteristic of rocket cars, but certainly the vehicle is essentially freak and even if the world’s record of 207£ m.p.h. is broken by a rocket car the achievement will hardly be a true motoring exploit. A rocket speed-boat has been built for demonstration on the Rhine. It is fitted with 24 rockets half of which are to be fired below the water-line. The rockets are simply fired in rapid succession by electric contacts on a revolving disc. In the Opel car a gramophone turntable was used. The accelerator pedal released the clockwork motor and within a few seconds the 12 rockets used had been fired. In one test the car had accelerated to 60 m.p.h. in the first six seconds. The average touring car is giving a fairly. lively performance if it attains 60 m.p.h. in 30 seconds.