It was just a few years into living that we gained knowledge of modifying electric cars for more power and increased velocity. Digging through the Clunkbucket Collection, we found an original Aurora Thunderjet car that was hopped up as a father-son project to beat the guy in the other lane. From what little we can remember, this procedure involved hand wrapping more copper … [Read more...]
1969 Honda Electric Rear Driver
Garage talk concerning engine swaps or drivetrain transplants is plentiful. Thousands of instant message windows, forum posts, and Facebook updates are populated at any given second with declarations of Hayabusa powered mid-engine rear-drive Ford Festivas (or similar) with induction systems managed by MegaSquirt. And so on. Some folks actually go so far as to get the pieces. … [Read more...]
Henney Kilowatt in Florida
The jet age was upon us. Radio magnates, vacuum cleaner industrialists, and battery manufacturing cabals pooled their vast economic resources. Top electrical engineer Victor Wouk and Pulitzer Prize winning chemist Linus Pauling were put on the job. French automaker Renault was called in for their expertise. From this global effort sprang a compact electric automobile with a top … [Read more...]
Detroit Spotlight 1966
The best part about having musty old car magazines from the '60s is reading press releases about how by 1971, we would all be driving electric cars that ran on batteries comprised of then futuristic exotic materials. In the Detroit Spotlight department of a December 1966 issue of Motor Trend magazine is a small photo of a 1931 Detroit Electric Model 99, accompanied by the news … [Read more...]
Lunar Roving Vehicle
On this day in the year of 1969, Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. A few short years later in 1971, Apollo 15 Commander David Randolph Scott became the first man to drive on the moon. The Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV, went the distance folded up under the Lunar Module. The LRV was deployed and loaded up with tools by the Astronauts on … [Read more...]