History Railton Special

[Lost_N_Austin]

How much room do you think you would need to turn that thing around? Maybe a County? I'd like to see the trailer for it.

Lost_N_Austin

[hugh m]

The late Jocko Johnson was also very impressed with this car, and he did several editions in model form, including hand carved billet ones. This fiberglass version is the third one in, situated on the ill fated 555 streamliner, or at least the buck for it...

[autobilly]

Beautiful Behemoth!

[Hackerbilt]

Originally Posted by froghawk

I think this has been discussed before on the HAMB but there was also the Napier-Railton racer from the '30s...

Shown airborne at Brooklands. Same driver, John Cobb.

What else would you expect? It IS an airplane engine ! LOL

Awesome cars and drivers to match.
Failure wasn't in their vocabulary...so who needs safety? You didn't get in the car expecting to crash....
Unreal.

[SDhotrod]

Originally Posted by shmoozo

That is one funky looking engine. It looks like it has 3 banks of cylinders. How odd.



Several things leap out to me when I look at that photo. First, yeah, the thing is FRICKIN' HUGE!

Second, it appears to have independent front suspension with double A arms, and am I right that it's also 4 wheel drive with one engine driving each of the axles? If that's what I am seeing, then I can see how the driver wound up shoved way out in front of the rest of the car. There was just no room for him in the middle with those mechanical monsters and the huge tanks (Didja see that frickin' tank back over his left shoulder?!) taking up all the space.

I wonder what that thing sounded like blowing past you at full speed. Hell, I wonder what it sounded like inside the cockpit at any speed!



One last observation. Isn't it interesting that he's wearing a dress shirt and a tie? And are those pin stripes on his trousers?

And there's another "frickin' huge" tank behind the right side engine. Are those fuel tanks? One for each engine?


A closer look at this pic, you can see that the left side engine is angled towards the right front of the car and the right engine is angled to the left rear. I'll probably never get over to England to see this car, but it would be interesting to get a close up look at how it all went together to work like it did. Thanks visualj for the link to the Brooklands site. Awesome pics there.

[Drewfus]

Originally Posted by shmoozo

One last observation. Isn't it interesting that he's wearing a dress shirt and a tie? And are those pin stripes on his trousers?

Shirt sleeves rolled up, and from the side shot it appears he couldn't afford full lenght pants....or socks for that matter

Class, the whole lot of it, and despite the enormity of the project, they still added the 'lightening holes in the chassis and wherever possible.....

AWESOME....that is hot rodding with a very big hammer, shirts, ties, balls and all.

Cheers,

Drewfus

[Chuck G.]

I found some great color footage of this car on Youtube.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...d.php?t=382723

The link above has the video as well as some other good info and links other people posted.

[The37Kid]

The car was in a LSR feature in Ray Kuns Auitomobile Racing the fifth edition 1939. One of the tanks held 75 gallons of ice water, used to cool the brakes that were on the two prop shafts (drive shafts). Fuel tank held 18 gallons, oil tank held 15 gallons. I'll post a photo of a MILLER W connecting rod tomorrow if someone doesn't post one of these engineering masterpieces before me.

[fullhouse296]

If you want to see one of these creations doing the business at full song on sand , PLUS ! 2x 360 degree spins with oil leaks and flames , watch an old movie with James Mason , called "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN " .

[Truckedup]

This is the connecting rod assembly for the Napier Lion engine.Pretty much standard radial engine design

Here's a link to one of these engines being restored,lots of photos.
http://www.enginehistory.org/restora...htm#NapierLion

[exwestracer]

Originally Posted by SDhotrod

And there's another "frickin' huge" tank behind the right side engine. Are those fuel tanks? One for each engine?


A closer look at this pic, you can see that the left side engine is angled towards the right front of the car and the right engine is angled to the left rear. I'll probably never get over to England to see this car, but it would be interesting to get a close up look at how it all went together to work like it did. Thanks visualj for the link to the Brooklands site. Awesome pics there.

I have a Brooklands Motorbook on early LSR cars that has a number of period articles and a cutaway drawing of the Railton. It appears that Reid Railton just altered the ring and pinion angle from 90deg to accommodate the angle the engines were mounted at. The driveshafts go stright in to the final drives. They built everything from scratch, so why not?

[Ramblur]

The neighbor has a couple Napier Sabre engines and a Hawker Tempest V
currently in England. I won't miss the chance if he ever gets to the point
of lighting a fire in that badboy.
http://blog.kermitweeks.com/?cat=33

[eddie1]

Originally Posted by Brootal

They really didn't give a shit about driver safety back then, did they?

Right at the front, no hint of a roll cage or any kind of collision protection. Imagine the uproar today!

That was my first thought as well.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by eddie1

That was my first thought as well.

He wasn't so much worried about living or dying... He was worried about going 400 mph.

[eddie1]

Originally Posted by Ryan

He wasn't so much worried about living or dying... He was worried about going 400 mph.

Agreed, but the safety police would not allow that car to run anywhere today.

[speedtool]

Reid Railton was THE British racecar designer back in the day.
He designed land speed cars for Malcolm Campbell, John Cobb, George Eyston and others.

[Buford Solomon]

Originally Posted by flamingokid

Imagine what those guys could have done with the technology we have available today.

I am thinking the same thing. And more, what if someone like Roger Penske would tackle the land-speed records. Not with a jet or rocket, but with a piston engine.

Back in 1927, Henry Segrave drove a Sunbeam to a top speed of 207 mph on the sands of Daytona Beach. Driving in a straight line; no turns. The car was powered by two 1369 cu. in. 12-cylinder aviation engines. At Indy this year, I think Franchitti (and a lot of others, of course) was lapping at something like 218 mph. In a car powered by a single 213.6 cu. in. engine.