While many of my colleagues spend many hours trawling the Net for video clips of cars going sideways, I enjoy delving the depths of Youtube for shaky black and white films from the early days of the automobile. It really is quite amazing what you can find. In many cases the guys that were really pushing the boundaries back then operated in environments that were borderline suicidal. Most certainly, if you are a health-and-safety representative you’d be terrified by what you’re about to witness on the following video clips. Look, there isn’t a high-visibility jacket or a hard hat in sight!
Fritz von Opel (yes, grandson of Adam Opel, founding father of German car manufacturer Opel) had a thing for rockets, especially for the spectacle they caused. Seeing as he was in charge of publicity at Opel, rockets were a good way to attract attention.
On 15 March 1928 von Opel tested his first rocket-powered car, the RAK 1, and achieved a top speed of 75 km/h That was just the start… less than two months later, he reached a speed of 230 km/h in the more well-known RAK 2, powered by 24 solid-fuel rockets! The amazing thing was that Fritz did the driving himself, sitting with 120 kg of explosives centimetres behind his head generating 6 000 kg of thrust. He had this to say: “I step on the ignition pedal and the rockets roar behind me, throwing me forward. It’s liberating. I step on the pedal again, then again and–it grips me like a rage–a fourth time. To my sides, everything disappears. All I see now is the track stretched out before me like a big ribbon. I step down four more times, quickly–now I’m traveling on eight rockets. The acceleration gives me a rush.” Each time von Opel pressed on the gas pedal he ignited two rockets, increasing power until he reached full strength. Near the end of his run the car’s front wheels were in the air…
Later in 1928 on 11 June Fritz’s rocket-powered jet plane (a world first) took to the skies. Sadly, the plane exploded on its second test flight, before von Opel had a chance to pilot it himself. No worries, he built another and piloted it a year later.
And then, for his next trick, he took to the railways to build the world’s first rocket-powered railway car. The first run was good, the car achieving 254 km/h. Happy that all was well, he put a pet cat in the car for the second run. Unluckily for the cat, this time round, the rocket-sled went bang in a major way… And that was pretty much that for the RAK rocket machines.
Source: www.videosurf.com
