Grex Cars Conference

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Grex Cars Item 93: Speed
Entered by mcpoz on Wed Dec 18 00:06:58 UTC 1996:

Here's an article I found in a paperback book titled "The Rolls-Royce" by 
Jonathan Wood.          

     In 1937 George Eyston initiated the construction of the largest     
     petrol-engined land speed record car ever built.  The 73 litre 
     'Thunderbolt' was powered by two Rolls-Royce R-type aero-engines
     and was built at the Beans Industries works at Tipton, West Midlands,
     in 1937.  It held the record in 1937 and 1938, its fastest speed   
     being 357.50 mph (575 km/h)

If I would have taken a guess at when speed records were this high, I would
have guessed in the 1950-53 timeframe.   By the way, that is "seventy-three"
litres or nearly 4500 cubic inches.  

The above wording is above a photo of the car which has 6 wheels, (3 in-line
per side with two at the rear.)  By scaling the picture, I would estimate
that it has 4.5 to 5' wheels and is about 20 ft long.

6 responses total.

#1 of 6 by omni on Wed Dec 18 05:25:14 1996:

  4454.46 to be exact. That's quite a large engine, almost 10 times 
a 1979 Trans Am's was.

  The formula for converting is  cu=l*61.02

#2 of 6 by mcpoz on Wed Dec 18 23:08:02 1996:

Thanks!  Yeah, that, technically speaking, is humongous!

#3 of 6 by omni on Thu Dec 19 21:15:24 1996:

 I'd like to see the MPG on that, or was that one rated in GPH?

  I remember when I was in aviation school, that the average F-4 Phantom
sucked 20 gallons an hour, even more when the afterburners were used.

#4 of 6 by mcpoz on Fri Dec 20 01:44:15 1996:

Most automotive fuel pumps are rated in liters/hour.

#5 of 6 by n8nxf on Fri Dec 20 15:09:47 1996:

So the fuel pump for a F-4 has to deliver about 90 l/hr.  I figured one
of those things would drink more than 20 gal. of fuel in an hour.

#6 of 6 by mcpoz on Fri Dec 20 20:21:22 1996:

Some cars and a lot of trucks need more than 150 l/hr.

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