Posted on 04/10/2023 10:56:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
Steam cars hit the U.S. market in the 1890s but were largely extinct by the 1930s. Will technology bring them back?
Credit: Huw Williams (Huwmanbeing) / Wikipedia / Public Domain
Imagine going out to your garage or driveway to get into your car. But instead of keys to get it started, you’ll be using matches or a blowtorch, because your car has a pilot light. For those who owned steam-powered automobiles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this was a daily reality. Before Henry Ford’s Model T revolutionized the affordability of internal combustion engines for Americans, steam-powered vehicles had their day in the sun.
These cars, though inconvenient by modern standards, produced less pollution than their gas-driven counterparts, set world land speed records, and were owned by the likes of Howard Hughes. So what happened to them?
The golden age of steam cars Steam engines work by means of external combustion, meaning fuel is combusted outside the engine to heat water and create steam, which is then transferred to the engine’s pistons, which move rods and cranks that transfer power to axles and wheels. Jay Leno, the late night comedian and famous car enthusiast who owns a 1925 Doble E-20 Steam Car once owned by Howard Hughes, said steam power so efficiently produced torque that it was referred to as “the hand of God.”
By the time commercially available steam cars hit U.S. markets in the 1890s, the world was already well-acquainted with steam engines: They propelled powerful locomotives and passenger boats across the globe.
From around 1900 until shortly after World War I, steam was a popular choice of automobile. Steam cars were less dangerous than gasoline engines that required strenuous hand-cranking to start and had further range than early electric cars. They were also very low-emission compared to early internal combustion engines, more reliable, and often quieter. American manufacturers were plentiful: Locomobile, Baldwin, Stanley, White, and Doble, among others.
The steam car also had sheer speed: many early Stanley models could travel 75 mph (121 kph), and some could go much faster.
In January 1906, a Stanley-built steam car showed up on the sandy beaches of Ormond Beach, Florida. Driven by Fred Marriott, the two-cylinder, 50-horsepower vehicle set a world land speed record of 127.66 mph (205 kph) over a one-mile (1.6-km) course. Despite having less horsepower, the car’s time was at least a full second quicker than any of the gas-powered record attempts for the same distance.
Running out of steam Steam cars had their drawbacks, though. Drivers had to have a fair amount of attention on steam pressures and other gauges that diverted their attention from the simple act of driving. The dependence on boilers (and the water inside them) made the cars quite heavy, and the entire process of starting one (lighting a pilot and waiting 20 to 30 minutes to properly create steam for motion) wasn’t very convenient.
The 1899 Baldwin Steamer, for instance, took 20 minutes to get started, and its boiler needed refilling about every 20 miles. The boiler was also located under the driver’s seat, creating potentially dangerous issues if improperly maintained. As the 1920s roared along, steam cars saw some technological advancements, resulting in shortened starting times and less complexity on the driver’s part.
But as time progressed, the cost-effectiveness and convenience of gas spelled the end of commercial steam cars. Assembly line production of modern cars made gas-powered vehicles cheaper, and electric starters made hand cranking a thing of the past.
Steam car companies either adapted or died. Locomobile switched to internal combustion, as did White. Stanley went out of business in 1924, while Doble ceased production by 1931 after stock fraud allegations badly damaged its namesake’s reputation.
Picking up steam? The April 1957 issue of Road & Track asked the question: Is steam coming back? On its cover that month was the Paxton Phoenix, a rear-engine coupe prototype for which several engine packages were considered. One of them was a Doble-designed steam engine that was even tested on a dynamometer. While it was hoped this car might revive the steam dream, the project was abandoned due to cost concerns in 1954, and the car never saw production.
During the 1950s and 1960s, an engine company occasionally offered steam engine conversions for production cars, and interest was also piqued in the 1970s due to air pollution increases and energy crises. The California Highway Patrol even investigated using steam-powered patrol cars in 1969. That same year, General Motors revealed two experimental steam cars based off a converted Chevrolet Chevelle and Pontiac Grand Prix, but they were just that: experiments.
Bill Lear, the man who founded LearJet, also dabbled with both street and race cars utilizing a steam turbine in the late 1960s, but nothing much came of it. In the end, no commercial car or engine manufacturer has produced steam-driven vehicles for the general public since they fell out of favor around a century ago.
In 2008, Popular Science covered the tinkering exploits of Florida boat engineer and inventor Harry Schoell, who proposed a reinvented steam engine called “The Cyclone Green Revolution Engine.”
Schoell’s engine uses superheated steam, which makes it behave more like a liquid, helping it convert about 20% more energy into torque compared to an internal combustion engine. Despite interest from lawn mower companies and others, the engine doesn’t appear to have been considered for any legitimate road-driven purposes.
One area where steam-drive still has novelty, however, is in the breaking of world land speed records. On August 25, 2009, the 1906 steam car speed record was officially broken by the British-built Inspiration — a 25-foot-long, 12-boiler vehicle that weighs three metric tons and looks kind of like the Batmobile.
Made from a combination of carbon fiber, aluminum, and steel, the car ran an average speed of 139.843 mph (225 kph) at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert. On its second run (records require the average of two runs over one mile), it reached a top speed of 151 mph (243 kph).
Today, most steam cars can be found in the collections of car collectors like Leno, or in museums like Tacoma, Washington’s LeMay Museum. They are reminders of a different time in American automotive history. Only time and technology will tell if their vogue is ever revived.
Plus water turns to ice and expands about 10% while destroying most pressure vessels used on steam engines...
Contained ice expands with 25,000 PSI and more...
So the vehicle stays heated all winter or drained after each use.
OH CRAP!!!
I FORGOT TO DRAIN THE STANLEY!
MUST WATCH!
https://youtu.be/c_05tcpmyUU
A tank of gasoline is infinitely safer than having every teenage girl and housewife running live steam. And then of course, it’s really fun to have to wait for the water to boil, and also to have to find water.
Oh, and by the way sport, you’ll need that tank of flammable fuel to heat the water up to operating temperatures. Unless you are planning to burn coal or wood.
One day, little boy, you will learn that the snarky question “what could possibly go wrong?” indicates a feeble mind.
Steam cars were in use for a few decades, kiddo. Did they have a serious problem with the boilers exploding? If you wanted to engage in useful discussion, you might have looked into that.
But you didn’t.
You just resorted to mindless snark.
Then you got your panties in a twist when I called you on it.
I pity you.
I won’t bother reading whatever lame and brainless response you post in reply.
Have a nice day.
I actually believe it was a massive change affecting everything. Day to day life, much more than just thinking. Changed production, productivity, mobility, marketing, even genetics. People were able to buy more and rely more on specialists rather than having to do everything for themselves. And they moved more so people started mixing it up in the breeding department.
“These cars, though inconvenient by modern standards, produced less pollution than their gas-driven counterparts” — they were inconconvient by the standards of 100 years ago too, they didn’t have range, and due to the extra weight of water, used *more* energy than the high-compression long-stroke small-bore ICE vehicles that supplanted them. Also, steam vehicle maintenance is higher, because high-wear spots have to be non-ferrous, hence, they’re soft (copper and copper alloys, typically). These are the same reasons locomotives are now diesel-electric.
Don’t confuse the heating with the actual propulsive source.
Nuclear is for heating. The steam is created and drives the engine. As with other heat sources such as oil. But the water is the driver.
Howard Hughes modified this 1925 Doble steam car to reach a 133 MPH top speed
What it’s like to operate and drive a 100-year-old steamer
Hemmings Contributor
11/15/2022
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/steaming-sensation-1925-doble
This is an easy fix. Create a miniature nuclear reactor that requires only a couple of Uranium fuel pellets and a closed loop pressurized steam boiler system.
Ford Nucleon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ford Nucleon concept car.
The Ford Nucleon is a concept car developed by Ford in 1957, designed as a future nuclear-powered car—one of a handful of such designs during the 1950s and 1960s. The concept was only demonstrated as a scale model. The design did not include an internal-combustion engine; rather, the vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle, based on the assumption that this would one day be possible by reducing sizes. The car was to use a steam engine powered by uranium fission, similar to those found in nuclear submarines.[1]
The mock-up of the car can be viewed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.[2]
OK.
THAT was cool. Not terribly practical, but definitely cool. Especially the grilled chorizo.
Reminds me of old steam-powered farm equipment.
Speaking of oddball transportation:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=compressed+air+vehicle
Yes. I have played with this idea.
I always have wanted to build a miny steam wankel
Nuclear already makes steam work. As does coal and oil.
The small scale mobile stuff is where steam becomes rather untenable. If someone can find an easy and quick way to create steam that would be a huge leap forward.
.
Naw - but mule-drawn wagons will - but only in California to
haul food and other necessities no longer hauled by the
soon to be illegal evil 18 wheeled diesel trucks.
/Sarc
“Daddy, what did we use to haul freight before ox-carts?”
“Diesel trucks ...”
Won’t they need 20 mule teams to haul Borax like in the olden days?
California don’t need no stink’n trucks.
The leftists will kill all of the horses because they make methane.
—
Then there will be nothing left for Germans to eat!
Good points, Agree.
Also allowed specialization in fields of endeavor, as you mention.
The 'Big Boy' and 'Challenger' steam locomotives were the most
efficient, and also the largest (in the US anyway).
From Wikipedia -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_Big_Boy
"The Union Pacific Big Boy is a type of simple articulated
4-8-8-4 steam locomotive manufactured by the American
Locomotive Company (ALCO) between 1941 and 1944 and
operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in revenue
service until 1962.
The 25 Big Boy locomotives were built to haul freight over
the Wasatch Range between Ogden, Utah, and Green River,
Wyoming. In the late 1940s, they were reassigned to
Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they hauled freight over
Sherman Hill to Laramie, Wyoming. They were the only
locomotives to use a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement: four-
wheel leading truck for stability entering curves,
two sets of eight driving wheels and a four-wheel
trailing truck to support the large firebox.
Today, eight Big Boys survive, with most on static display
at museums across the USA. One of them, No. 4014, was
re-acquired by Union Pacific, and between 2014 and 2019
it was rebuilt to operating condition for the 150th
anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad. It
thus regained the title as the largest and most powerful
operating steam locomotive in the world."
I got to see Big Boy when it came through Rawlins Wyoming a few years back. It was incredible!
You can check the schedule for the Big Boy out of Cheyenne. They take across the U.S. on tours.
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