With petrol getting more and more expensive, it was only a matter of time before someone put a train engine under their hood. It was the only rational outcome.
Built by Hauk Designs in an almost instantaneous eight week period for the television series 'Road Hauks', this ridiculous 2008 Jeep Wrangler could just be the best thing to come from Pennsylvania since the Slinky.
While the Wrangler may weigh a hefty 5443kg - which is about 15kg shy of the moon - and puts out a whimsical 100kW, it does bolster that with an incredible 3389Nm worth of torque.
Just so you get a good idea of just how much torque that is, a VFII Holden Commodore SS that shoves you into the back of the seat ‘makes do’ with 570Nm. And that’s the one with the 6.2-litre V8. 3389Nm is even three times more than what Pagani’s bonkers Huayererghyer cranks out – and that thing is barely beat by anything. Except its stupid name.
The steam engine uses a 208-litre water tank - heated by a 60-litres worth of kerosene - to compress around 500psi of steam into a 1.6-litre flat-plane crank V4 from 1960. It's also a ‘single-acting, trunk-piston, poppet-valve uniflow’ design, too. Whatever that means.
If the steam engine lingo sounds a bit complex, have no fear. Steam engines, much like their petrol cousins, harness expanding forces of energy and put it in a confined space. This pressure quickly builds up until it pushes against components designed to move away, this force is then captured and converted into rotational force.
Anywho – while drive goes through the factory 6-speed manual transmission (don’t ask how it hasn’t exploded) and transfer case, the engine is limited to a reverse gear, one forward low-range gear and one forward high-range gear.
Which might sound a bit weird, starting your car off in such a tall gear, but not when the engine is punching out circa-3389Nm. With torque like that, you could probably do a hill-start in 10th.
Top speed is around 80-100km/h and while it can climb every mountain and ford every stream with its six wheels, its range - traveling at 50km/h anyway - is a strict 2.6 kilometres.
Remembering that it has a 208-litre tank to fill, long journeys are going to take some time. And expensive too – replenishing the 60-litres worth of kerosene used to heat the water alone would cost around $225 and would only last for 48 minutes.
To add to the complexity of keeping it operational, there’s the batteries and solenoids than run the electric steering, oil pump and three water pumps. Oh, and stopping power is done by the standard Jeep disc brakes. Wait, what?
Having driven a couple of Wranglers before, I should warn you that if you see this thing coming towards you, it’d be best to kick off your thongs and run. Just run. I wouldn’t even trust the brakes to pull up a box of single-ply tissues, let alone a 5.0 tonne kettle.
Check out the clip below to see the steam-powered Wrangler in action.
What do you think of steam power? Does the insane fantasy of it outweigh all the disadvantages? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
