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.
I don’t know why you’re writing this to me as if it weren’t in line with what I wrote, namely that technically nuclear is a form of steam propulsion. I was just chuckling at the way AnalogReigns could be read as proposing nuclear reactors in cars.
Yes. If the advance lever was set too far, the engine would kick back. It came to be referred to as a “Ford Fracture.”
We had a car in the 60’s that had a hand crank. And yes, you could fracture your arm quite easily.
Steam cars were in use for a few decades, kiddo. Did they have a serious problem with the boilers exploding?
Yeah sport, they did. But the main problem is the firebox and with steam lines letting go. Jay Leno was badly burned by a steam car just last year. And they used steam in locomotives and on ships. Live steam is not a mass market product you feeble minded simp.
But you go on, pretending steam cars are a safe idea. Doesn’t bother me at all. And the minute gasoline was available, everyone fled to it and away from steam.
And people who say they will not read a response have feeble minds. You know your position is moronic. AMF.
Ever seen a boiler explode?
Doesn’t take much to figure out why they disappeared.
All heat engines are subject to the Carnot cycle.
Here is a 14 cylinder ICE that produces 109,000 horsepower.
What is your point?
That’s a detail I never heard about till now. That crank would suddenly go whirling around very quickly.
The movie looks like a Harold Lloyd film I saw years ago.
Took you that long to search the internet for that? I never even looked.
I suspect it is a MAN diesel or similar, they make them from about 24 to 36 inch bore, or so, and strokes from 4ft to 8ft. Rpms at around 90 to 120 or so. THOSE ARE ENGINES. not some little wash machine engine in vehicles these days.
I studied in Marine Diesel Engineering school in the early 70s. I got my degree from that Tech School and went on to MTU for my associates degree in engineering.
Neither are offered any longer in either school (Tech Offers Engineering but it is exclusively a four year study).
Not one of us in my class went on to the Ore Boats on the great lakes or the salties on the oceans. If any one of us had, good chance that one would have been on the Fitz when it went down.
So some people have got a ways to go to catch up. That includes the dumb kids that are now coming out of schools with absolutely no understanding of what makes engines tick.
Speaking of cranking why don’t they make a car that runs on fentynal since there seems to be plenty of it around.
I've seen Norfolk & Southern's steam engines that they occasionally
run around Virginia though - but that was 3 decades ago.
Ever take a look at the Titanics engines?
Triple expansion and the final exhaust went to a low pressure steam turbine at around 12 PSI and around 180 degrees...If I remember right.
All the steam ship were converted to oil and as far as I know..every one of the liberty ships were powered by triple expansion steam engines.
Steam powers the world. It just isnt in the form of running engines.
I doubt anyone here can define an engine vs a motor.
I think they somehow fixed the problem after a few thousand broken bones.😀
Thanks Sheldon 😁
What are they going to use for fuel when diesel and gasoline are banned?
Just responding to your picture, but it amazes me how dirty we were a hundred plus years ago. Can you imagine living in a town where everyone was burning coal in order to heat their homes? Now we are getting dirty in an effort to go green. Mine the rare earth and litter the land with inefficient wind and solar.
Highly likely the horse and wagon will make a comeback. So!!! Dig out those shares in that defunct buggy whip factory, its coming back too!.
.
Burning coal was a messy business I hear.
My maternal grandparents heated with coal in the 'old days'.
And my grandmother told me about how, when she was a girl,
folks would put their coal ashes (cooled, I suppose) out on the
the snow & ice-covered streets of Philadelphia so the horses
would have better traction and footing & not slip & fall,
possibly breaking a leg.
It certainly all does sound quite messy, though.
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