Nothing in this world is more captivating than watching a drag race. Multiple cars all built with the best engines vying for first place. All of the fans in the stands are anxiously waiting to see who will pull out that last minute speed boost and pass the other cars and cross the finish line. Many people have dreamed of what it would be like to drive such a vehicle. Well, one man has decided to make his drag racing dream a reality and build the ultimate super car.
Ryan McQueen, a normal guy who lives in Sherwood Park Canada built a drag car with two jet engines. These are two real jet engines that came from a real fighter jet! The car has a build that’s inspired by the Ferrari Enzo and the construction of this vehicle is truly a daring feat. Of course, you cannot build such a crazy car without giving it an equally crazy name. McQueen has dubbed his jet engine car,” Insanity “. The entire project took McQueen 12 years to complete and McQueen spent quite a fortune to build his dream car. He spent a total of 90,000 US dollars (69,000 Canadian dollars). The car is handmade by McQueen himself and it features a sharp red body color with its name inscribed on both sides of the car next to the rear wheels.
The two huge jet engines are bound to immediately grab your attention. This car reaches a top speed of 400 mph (650 kilometers). This is just 100 mph below the speed range of an average bowing passenger jet! Its jet engines require jet fuel but you can obviously forget all about fuel economy with this vehicle. It burns over 400 liters of jet fuel in only two minutes. It weighs 3,800 pounds and has a whopping 14,000 pounds of thrust.
There are many different types of jet-like devices that racers are putting on the backs of their vehicles and today, many racers have been putting on turbine engines but mostly are only using one. It is almost unheard of to use two engines let alone, jet engines. McQueen’s jet engines are Rolls Royce engines, not actually turbine engines. McQueen says that his car is the only one of its kind in the world. There is no other twin jet engine power car that is known to exist.
There is no other quite like it in power or design. It may be inspired by a Ferrari Enzo, but it doesn’t use any parts from that type of car. The dimensions of the vehicle are not at all like that of the Ferrari Enzo. However, McQueen got the proportions of the car exactly on point and he made sure to build a chassis big enough to house his two Rolls Royce engines. It was extremely challenging for him since he was doing it all by hand and it took him five years alone to build the mold for the body of the car. It also took him another two years to build the frame and he literally made the entire vehicle from scratch and built it in his garage.
It’s amazing to think he did it all on his own by hand. It’s even more amazing when you consider the fact that McQueen actually had no prior technical or engineering training. When he started out in 2004, he knew next to nothing. He didn’t know how to do any of the crucial skills he would need to do like welding, tube bending and design. He completely self taught himself. All of the things that he had to learn were simply learned along the way. He can credit much of his accomplishment to YouTube and Google. Now, you might be wondering, where does one find two jet engines? Well, McQueen as you have already learned is a very resourceful man. He went down to America and traveled to Colorado. He went down to a military surplus auction and he bid on the Rolls Royce engines there.
It’s not at all uncommon to make drag racing cars with jet engines. Although, using two of them is. Using airplane engines in cars has been going on almost as long as plains and cars have been around. It first started around World War 1. They were often used between World War 1 and World War 2. There was a big surplus of airplane engines around that time and many of them were used for drag racing vehicles.
One of the most notable times was when John Cobb was racing piston engined cars (which was a type of airplane engine at the time). He was racing at extremely high speeds for that era. He was breaking his own records and at one point in 1947, he broke his own record and hit a top speed of 394 mph. The first ever cars with jet engines were introduced in 1962. Cars with jet engines are also known as Aero Engines. They used fighter jet engines from the Korean war. One of them was the Caduceus and it reached a top speed of 331 mph. The famous Spirit of America was another one. It was driven by Craig Breedlove. It had a very sharp needle nose. In 1963 it broke the top speed record of that year at a speed of 407 mph!
So, what McQueen is doing here is not new but no one has ever put two Rolls Royce engines in a single vehicle before. Most jet engine cars break some kind of record and, there is no doubt that insanity will too assuming that it works. Will the car endure 400+ miles per hour? It’s hard to say. Whether or not McQueen’s Insanity car will be an amazingly wicked fast car is something to watch out for.
What would happen when McQueen does race this car? Let’s assume that it will work and that it will reach a speed of 400+ mph. What would happen? Well, I think it’s safe to say that a vehicle with that kind of speed would be pretty much unstoppable. The average speed of professional drag racing, depending on the track, is roughly 300 mph. Give or take a few miles. But would they even let him race Insanity? Let’s look at a little history.
In 1968 there was a British auto maker called Lotus. They are still around today and are known for their sleek fast sports cars. In 1968 they developed one of the most advanced cars in the history of auto racing, the Lotus Type 56. It was a car with a turbine engine (turbine engines are similar to jet engines). They created it with the purpose of using it in the 1968 Indy 500. The president of STP Andy Granatelli himself had the idea of using the turbine engine in the Indy 500. The turbine ran on gasoline just like the commonly used piston engine.
Insanity’s jet engines will work in a way that’s similar to the way the turbine Lotus’s engines worked. They worked by sucking air into a flaming hot combustion chamber which then heats the air so hot that it ignites. That heated air powers a fan which turns the driver shaft. The turbine engine was light and extremely powerful. If it was installed into a vehicle with a four wheel drive it would have tremendous grip and with it, lighting fast speeds. The turbine engine had the potential to become a true menace and turn the auto racing sport upside down. However, it was not to be. At first, turbine engine powered cars experienced a plague of mechanical problems. The technology was very new back then and it needed a lot of perfecting. However, Lotus would never get the chance. Before the air turbine engine powered car could participate in a single race the U.S auto club asked turbine engine manufactures to lower its air intake by 35 percent. But, even then it was still too much of a formidable foe on the track. So The U.S Auto Club banned it altogether. It was still used in some formula one racing events though of course. And there are many racing events worldwide today that do allow for the use of turbine engines.
But, back to the Insanity. Given the fact that auto racing organizations have a history of banning cars that are simply too advanced for other vehicles to compete with, would McQueen be able to race his? If it works, and it performs as well on the track as it’s supposed too, then it could be a very real possibility that the Insanity would be banned after only a few races. So, when can we expect to see Insanity on the track? Well, McQueen is already lining up races. McQueen is not allowed to drive his pride and joy right now though. There are multiple safety inspections that it has to pass first. The inspections will be done this fall and McQueen hopes to be able to drive insanity by next summer. It is sure to be a must see race when he does. To be able to see two fighter jet engines fire up and zoom down a track at 400 mph would be historical and breathtaking. If it does I’m sure people from all over the world will flock to see Insanity.
Source: facebook.com , motor1.com