Goldenrod (record car)
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The Goldenrod is an American record car, the Bob Summers on 12 November 1965 to used on the Bonneville Flats with 658.649 km / h speed record for on wheels powered vehicles set up.
"Hot Rodders" collaboration with aircraft engineers
A shade of gold that Chevrolet used for paintwork in 1957 gave the car its color and first half of the name. The ending was due to the fact that the two initiators - in addition to driver Bob, his brother Bill Summers was involved as a team manager - were " Hot Rodder " and the car had dozens of corresponding predecessors. In terms of its name, the project was on a low-cost level - a quarter of a million dollars came together in the end - in stark contrast to the Blue Bird CN 7 (648.7 km / h) of British Donald Campbell , whose company 5 Had devoured millions of dollars. But from the 4.5 × 12 meter large shed in Ontario (California) , formerly the seat of a vegetable trade, in which the vehicle was built, one should not infer an overly naive approach to the task: George Hurst, owner of Hurst Performance Products got the scene moving with a sponsor's check for $ 5,000, followed by Firestone , Mobil Oil , Chrysler and the spark plug maker Champion . An aircraft engineer was used for the development and a scale model of the car in the Cal Tech - wind tunnel tested.
Four "elephant motors" under sheet aluminum
Unlike their compatriot Mickey Thompson , in whose Challenger I 1959 the four V8 engines were arranged in pairs next to each other, the Summers relied on four machines , each of which was coupled on a line in pairs on the flywheel side via a gearbox. At the side, the power flow passed the engine to the front or rear axle with wheels individually suspended from wishbones - suspension included. The Chrysler eight-cylinder - V - naturally aspirated engines , each with 426 cubic inches (7 liters) were substantially close to production capacity, merely the mechanical Hilborn- manifold injection was changed. The performance of the unit, known as the "elephant engine", was nevertheless considerable with 700 hp , albeit with large dimensions and heavy weight. Bill and Bob Summers hand-welded the tubular steel frame together and built the aluminum body . The mm with 535 over the hood very low height of the car related to the use of specially designed for Goldenrod developed tires that had 16-inch (406 mm) has a rim diameter as it was so small not yet occurred in record car. The load was calculated from a maximum engine speed of 6800 rpm and a gear ratio of 1.0 in the highest (fourth) gear.
Record run with free "salt time"
At first things did not look good for the Summers brothers when they shipped the Goldenrod to Bonneville in the fall of 1965 , rain and wind seemed to thwart all plans. A late period of good weather fell on days when others had already booked the slope on the salt. But then the tide turned: Art Arfons had successfully finished his record hunt early and left the excess “salt time” to his colleagues who were friends with him. With eight runs on the salt, everything went relatively quickly: On November 12, 1965, the Goldenrod set a new record in its class with 658.649 km / h. The car ran like clockwork in the truest sense of the word, a big advantage as Bob Summers had to take both hands off the steering wheel to shift gears. The record run had taken place with large air scoops , recommended by Chrysler engineers, who accepted an aerodynamic disadvantage in favor of the air supply to the engines. The Summers brothers, however, swore by small air scoops with better aerodynamics of the car, and so Bob Summers competed again the following day. He drove 684 km / h in one direction, the necessary second run did not take place. Then team manager Bill blocked more for the future: In view of the costs and high risk, one shouldn't challenge fate and leave it at that.
When the two “hot roders” started, they could assume that their performance would barely reach the absolute land speed record . After the previous year’s controversy between Campbell and Breedlove , the FIA had clearly also granted the title to vehicles driven by recoil drives (e.g. jet engines ), which in 1965 drove faster than 900 km / h. However, the Summers brothers believed that real cars are powered by the friction between tires and the ground. In this sense, Al Teague was only faster in 1991 with the turbocharged Spirit of '76 with 659.8 km / h over the flying mile.
Shared with a bus from Montgomery
The borrowed engines went back to Chrysler and the "gutted" Goldenrod went on an exhibition tour for months until it found its place in the open space of the Wally Park NHRA Motorsports Museum for decades . Eventually he caught the eye of Bob Casey, curator of the Transport Department at the Henry Ford Museum , at an exhibition . In 2002 he managed to acquire the Goldenrod for this house. The restoration included, this was a very expensive process, and Casey applied with slight skepticism in the US federal government a " Save America's Treasures " -Subsidy, which is normally granted to the preservation of historic buildings. You were lucky, all the more remarkable since such funds were only used for automobiles for the “ Rosa Parks Bus”. The ravages of time had visibly gnawed at the Goldenrod , a lot had to be renewed: screws, nuts and washers. Otherwise, the restoration was driven by the idea of keeping as much of the original as possible, even if the result was less than perfect. The restoration took place deliberately in Southern California, where the vehicle was made and where people who knew and worked on the vehicle could still be found. Today the Goldenrod is one of the exhibits at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn .
Technical specifications
General data
| Wheelbase: | 5250 mm |
|---|---|
| Front / rear track: | 910/610 mm |
| Dimensions L × W × H: | 9700 × 1220 × 915 mm |
| Car weight: | 2720 kg |
engine
| Type: | Chrysler 426 - Cubic Inches - Hemi - V 8 Engine (6981 cm³) (4 pieces) |
|---|---|
| Working method: | Four-stroke Otto |
| Power: | together around 2400 hp at 6600 to 6800 rpm |
| Mixture preparation: | mechanical Hilborn intake manifold injection |
| Lubrication: | Dry sump lubrication |
| Fuel tank: | 4 tanks of 19 liters each |
Power transmission
| Drive: | all wheel drive |
|---|---|
| Coupling: | 2 slate double-plate clutches, hydraulically operated; Synchronization of the switching processes by a switching device from Hurst |
| Transmission: | 2 Spicer truck transmissions, originally five-speed with crawler gear removed ; Gear ratios 2.6 - 1.5 - 1.19 - 1 |
landing gear
| Frame: | Tubular steel frame with aluminum body |
|---|---|
| Axes: | Independent suspension |
| Brakes: | Deist braking parachute 2400 mm over 400 km /; Braking parachute 7200 mm between 160 and 400 km / h; Airheart triple disc brakes below 160 km / h |
| Steering: | Chrysler hydraulic steering |
| Bikes: | Aluminum wheels |
| Tires: | 6.5 × 16 in. (165 × 402 mm) tubeless Firestone; Air pressure 11 bar (occasional information also 20 bar) |
swell
- Rob Kinnan: American Treasure - Summers Brothers' Goldenrod , Hot Rod Magazine (excerpt from johnbaechtel.com, accessed December 15, 2013)
- Steve Purdy: Goldenrod at The Henry Ford , published on "TheAutoChannel.com"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eric Rickman: What Makes Summers Run? The Summer Brothers' Goldenrod , Hot Rod Magazine, April 1966, on "archive.is" ( Memento from September 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ a b Go Go , Der Spiegel No. 47/1965, pp. 106-108 [1]
- ↑ Jim Donnelly: The Summers Brothers. From humble beginnings hail pure genius , website "hemmings.com" (accessed on July 17, 2016)
- ↑ Chrysler Hemi Engine on the Internet portal "Offroaders.com"
- ↑ Goldenrod sets the land-speed record , Internet portal "History.com"
- ^ Paul Clifton: The fastest men at the wheel. The history of the world speed records in the automobile , ( The fastest men on earth, New York 1964, German), trans. by Günther Görtz, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1968, p. 292 f.
