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Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

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Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it's only street legal while the jet engine is turned off. Then you're just transporting a jet engine on the back of a Beetle, right?

That's what I thought too, but then the post says "That said, I do enjoy the occasional blast down the highway." and suddenly I'm not so sure...

I've also seen a mini-cooper on youtube with a jet in the back doing the same thing on the highway :)

Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#43
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it's only street legal while the jet engine is turned off. Then you're just transporting a jet engine on the back of a Beetle, right?

That's what I thought too, but then the post says "That said, I do enjoy the occasional blast down the highway." and suddenly I'm not so sure...

I'm sure that's not legal, but then, neither are more conventional blasts down the highway.

Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#44

I'm all for awesome engineering projects, in which this project is not deficient, however if this thing can be street legal then I don't understand why so many other cars are not allowed to be. Even when this thing is working as intended. it's shooting hot flames out the back.

Most laws around street legality center around certification of the chassis, safety equipment, and emissions. Don't run the jet engine during a smog test, and prove that all the necessary safety equipment function (signals, airbags, seatbelts, etc), and you're going to pass. This is why most kit cars depend on a "donor" chassis that gets stripped down and have the new car built on top of.

Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#45
post #24

I'm out in the Valley quite regularly. People here in Michigan ask me all the time about the difference between the two places outside of weather. This is a prime example. I've tried real hard but I can't imagine seeing this ad in Detroit. If it happened the press would get ahold of it and make fun of the guy. ;<(

Detroit is an odd example given that it's 'Motor City'. Chrysler built a jet powered car back when the original Beetle was in production. Then again nowadays it's all about FCA putting the biggest engine in every model they can before they die off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car

And the Chrysler turbine actually drove the wheels! Strapping a jet to a car is impressive engineering, no doubt, but mechanical propulsion is a whole different level.

Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#47
post #8

I don't want to start another "SF vs Miami/Austin rest of the US" but! An awesome thing in the Bay-Area is all the insane stuff you get on eBay and Craigslist. I bought a Velodyne VLP-16 LIDAR for my mobile robot side project and met up with a guy in SF. He had a startup that ended up using vision only so they sold off their LIDARs.

> An awesome thing in the Bay-Area is all the insane stuff you get on eBay and Craigslist. I don't browse craiglist much, but I buy a bunch of retro computing / telecom / lab equipment stuff on ebay and the coolest stuff is always local pickup only on the west coast I swear.

This varies by industry of course... the Bay Area is definitely the best place to score computing and electronics related stuff. But southern CA has way more aerospace stuff, New England (especially CT and MA) have a lot of precision instrumentation and manufacturing equipment, and for stuff like robots and heavy duty metalworking machinery you really want to be in the Rust Belt.

Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#48
Any other old-timers remember the "JATO Rocket Car" posting in Dawrin Awards on Usenet? From Wikipedia entry:

You all know about the Darwin Awards – it's the annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

And this year's nominee is:

The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. the wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened.

It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off – actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra 'push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!

The facts, as best could be determined, are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles [4.8 kilometers] from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within five seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 MPH [560 km/h], continuing at full power for an additional 20–25 seconds. The driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles [4.0 km] (15–20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles [2.3 km] and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet [38 m], leaving a blackened crater 3 feet [0.9 m] deep in the rock.

Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.

Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what browser you’re on, but this redirects me to the page that requires JS on Firefox android

They must be doing something tricky. I usually specifically link directly to the image for this reason. Or so I thought.

I'm seeing it redirect me when I put the link in an iframe, stripping off the .png

Whereas if I right click / save as, or put the link in an tag, the image is served properly. Could be conditional on the accept headers.

Re: Jet Powered Volkswagen Beetle – $550k (sunnyvale)

#50

Any other old-timers remember the "JATO Rocket Car" posting in Dawrin Awards on Usenet? From Wikipedia entry: You all know about the Darwin Awards – it's the annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to t…

Shame it's not true, makes for a good story. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/carmageddon/
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