GTP Cool Wall: 1929 Hungerford Rocket Car Prototype/"Shirley Lois Moon Girl"

1929 Hungerford Rocket Car Prototype/"Shirley Lois Moon Girl"

  • Total voters
    98
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White & Nerdy

White & Nerdy

4,209
United States
Wasilla, AK
1929 Hungerford Rocket Car Prototype/"Shirley Lois Moon Girl" nominated by Adamgp

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Stats:
Production: 1929
Style: Don't know, don't think it even matters
Engine: 171 ci naturally aspirated SV inline 4 (rated 26 HP & ?? lb-ft) + gasoline-powered forced-air rocket (rated ?? HP & ?? lb-ft)
Transmission: 3-speed selective-sliding cone-clutch
Layout: Probably Front-engine, Rear-drive, though the rocket would be at the back
​
Where to start with this thing? :lol: First commercially-built rocket car, as well as the first one to be licensed and registered for street use, and yes it was a fully functional car. Got 2 MPG while spewing a 20ft flame, could go about 50 MPH via the Chevrolet engine or about 70 with the rocket. The Hungerford brothers were going to build more normal-looking production versions, but were held back by a lack of funding and prospective buyers. The body was a wood frame covered in 1/8" thick cardboard and linoleum.
 
A car made from lime-wood, lino and cardboard. With rocket boost? How did they not sell in their thousands?!

Also, phallic symbol.
 
Love it. Brilliant thing.

Seriously uncool though. You'd look a complete knob - almost literally, given the shape of it - driving down the street in one.
 
It's one of those cars that is so bad it's cool. A wood-framed street-legal rocket car? Sub-Zero.
 
Nominated this for the LOL's, just for being so hilarious and absurd. Everything I read about this car seems to scream "Zero 🤬's given".

Sub Zero.
 
On it's own, stupid looking and uncool. Guy straps a rocket to it, instant cool. Not quite SZ though.
 
White & Nerdy
Where to start with this thing? :lol: First commercially-built rocket car, as well as the first one to be licensed and registered for street use, and yes it was a fully functional car. Got 2 MPG while spewing a 20ft flame, could go about 50 MPH via the Chevrolet engine or about 70 with the rocket. The Hungerford brothers were going to build more normal-looking production versions, but were held back by a lack of funding and prospective buyers. The body was a wood frame covered in 1/8" thick cardboard and linoleum.
Click to expand...

A few things to add:

They drove it on the road illegally for 2+ years before licensing and registering it in 1932, and kept it on the road until 1952.

In 1947 they loaned it to a family friend to use driving back and forth to college. (I now know what was missing from my own college experience, a rocket car!)

The cardboard/Linoleum body was intended as a safety feature. To quote one of the brothers, "In case there was a fire or an accident, I wanted to be able to kick my way out."

This car is still around. It was restored in the 60's, and the body was re-skinned in aluminum. It is on display at the New York State Museum.
 
I gave it a Sub-Zero in a heartbeat. I just have no reasons to back that up...the thing is just that batcrap insane, it just made me do it. I couldn't resist it's lunacy,
 
The Miura's days at the top are numbered.
Wait...someone's already said that.
Uncool.

Watch someone say 'Meh, I don't care about it...' That's the biggest lie you could say, surely.
 
Looks like the sort of thing that would be driven by some 50's superhero. He would be called the Bullet, with the power of guns, immediately making him better than Batman. He would constantly be pursued by the evil Doktor Von Evil, an evil doctor, but at the end of every Saturday morning the Bullet would just shoot him in the face or something and drive off into the sunset in his rocket-powered Bulletmobile. Sub zero.
 

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