History Craig Breedlove and the Spirit of America...

Great story and pictures. Whatever happened to Craig's last LSR car, I know it was underfunded & the Brit's got the record. It was a great looking vehicle but with a single engine maybe underpowered?

 

Great thread.Thanks for the history and the great pics.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Dad used to take me to the Auto Show in NYC every year back in the 1960's, got to see both Breedlove LSR cars there in the Lobby. Thre must be some good stories about moving the cars into buildings, and the cross country hauls. Thanks for all this history George, it means a lot to us that followed the Breedlove/Arfons duel back in the day. Bob

 

I took the car all over the country in 1966, starting in early January. 34,000 miles in about six months. Moving the cars into buildings for car shows and displays was pretty easy, actually. The tail fin was pretty easy to remove and I could remove the rear fender body panels if the doorways were a little narrow. I put the car into the New York Coliseum in 1966, perhaps we met.

When we got back from the salt in November, 1965, we pulled the engine out of the car (all but the afterburner) and repainted the car into a "show car". The car with the engine in it weighed about 10,000 pounds, considerably less without it. It rolled easily but of course, it could only turn 3-degrees lock to lock. I used a floor jack under the front end, lifted the front tires off the ground and was able to maneuver the car around some sharp turns inside buildings. At car shows (like the one in NY), I tried to get in first before a lot of the other cars showed up. At out door shows, like the openings of new Goodyear Tires stores, it was very easy to load and unload.


Goodyear had the display signs (in the background) made for us.



By the way, this book by Samuel Hawley, "Speed Duel", is about the most accurate description I've ever read about the back and forth action between Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove. I think it's still available in book stores and Amazon.com.

http://i708.photobucket.com/albums/ww88/geoklass/Breedlove LSR/51-KX0QaLCL_SL500_AA300_.jpg

In the late 1990's, I had a nice conversation with Art. We talked pretty often at the time. We talked about the "good old days" (he was in his 80's by then, lived into his 90's). He reminded me of how both he and Craig could never have accomplished all of what went down in the '60's were it not for the competition between Firestone and Goodyear. If Art (Firestone) held the record, it was easy for Craig to get Goodyear to fund the next project, and vice versa. If Art held the record, Firestone (or Goodyear if it were Craig) would not be interested in funding any new project, it would only happen when the tire company that DIDN'T hold the record wanted the record back.

 

Thank You, George for the awesome stories about Craig's car. I have always felt that the 60's were the most exciting time for land speed racing. When you consider what the record was in 1960 and compare it to where it stood in 1969, they made quantum leaps in speed and technology, and it was all done by guys like Craig and the Arfons. I love all of the details about what you guys did behind the scenes, and I was blown away at the super-star crewmembers that worked on it.

Keep posting up any additional information that you have. That kind of stuff is awesome for landspeed junkies like me.

 

Thanks for the Cobra story!

 

Goodmorning George, I am Lizbeth (Beth) on the HAMB. Yesterday Tim (Dragsled) Jones found your thread and said I needed to see it.. Some things in our lives we always remember, The movie about Craig Breedlove is one of those moments for me. I was 15 yr.s old at that time living in Pasco Wash. Babysitting and not much on the T.V. and the Story of Craig Breedlove came on, I was glued to that tube from start to finish...The idea of being able to fly that fast on land was unreal to me. Someday I kept thinking I could drive that fast, strange wish for a 15 year old girl , but oh well. Dreams do come true sometimes and mine have in the form of Tim's dragster. He has given me permission to drive when it's done. Finding your thread and having a chance to talk to someone who worked on one of my childhood dreams is really something I never thought would have been possible. I have a question for you , do you know if the movie I saw so long ago is one we can find now? I really would like to see it again to relive that feeling of wonder I had so long ago.. Thankyou for telling your story so the rest of the world can see just how cool speed is... Thanks again and a Good Day to You. Beth

 

I wasn't going to discuss the Wingfoot Express, Walt Arfons rocket car, but I guess I will anyway.

There are very few actual rules for the unlimited LSR cars, or at least there weren't in the 1960's. Don't know about today. But one definite rule at the time was that the driver must have a means to shut down the power. Some kind of a throttle system between the driver and the power plant was required. I know that sounds obvious.

Walt's idea about using JATO bottles was an interesting choice since each bottle had about 1000 pounds of thrust. 15 bottles would give him about the same power potential as our J-79 jet engine. And his "three wheel design" (using 4 wheels in front) was a very sharp idea. Breedlove's first car, the 3-wheel car, turned out to be a much better design aerodynamically than the 4-wheel Sonic 1 car. We had many aerodynamic issues (aerodynamic lift) with the 4-wheel car, none of which would have occurred had we used the 3-wheel design. But the JATO bottle approach had some problems. First, the run time was short. Walt's JATO "engines" would burn out before the car had much of a running start. But the real problem was the throttle situation. There was none. Once the bottles were "lit", they ran at full power until all their internal fuel was depleted. The sanctioning body at the salt flats argued back and forth about this with Walt until Walt "developed" a way to throttle the engines. Walt's way was to mount some kind of a dynamite cap on the nose of each JATO bottle. If the driver, Bobby Tatroe, wanted to shut down the power, he could press a button which would blow the nose off the bottles, thereby cancelling the thrust to the rear of the car with an equal thrust forward. Kind of like throwing the bomb into neutral. Then, to keep Bobby from burning up in the car, Walt mounted a 3/4-inch steel plate behind Bobby's cockpit seat.

I can sense that some of you are already rolling your eyes on that one...


This photo was taken prior to Walt adding five additional bottles on each side.


As you an see in this photo, not all the bottles were lit on this run. I think that Walt was trying to "stage" the thrust, to get a little longer run time. Even doing that, the power did not last long enough to build up the speed enough to set a record. I have read some outrageous speeds associated with the Wingfoot Express, way over 500 mph, but I watched every run the car ever made in 1965, and I don't think it ever ran much over 400 mph.

In the end, the car did not live up to it's aerodynamic potential (rear wheel pants not withstanding), and basically burned up the rear of the car past where it could be repaired.

I think that the paired up front wheel idea was a neat idea, an idea that Craig incorporated into his next LSR project.

 

This is great!

 

My favorate LSR car ever. Thank you George for shareing

 

Thanks George for a very interesting, well written and informative post.

 

That is a fantastic read and you're web page is awesome. Thanks George

 

Thanks for the great post! In the film "The Spirit of America" many of these same details are covered with the building of the first car (the trike) and also in the film "The Wildest Ride" which covers the record run and the crash of the 3-wheeler. There is also footage of Craig at El Mirage with his 34 coupe. Your post unveils some great details about the guys who were instrumental in building the first jet car. Breedlove must be a real force to have convinced such talented guys to work on such a speculative project. Somehow he convinced them that this was a history-making venture.

 

Here's a few more photos I had scanned in.


This is a better shot of the first car, the 3-wheeler, being moved out of Norm Breedlove's backyard for the first time (Norm is in the business suit). Craig is in the background on the right of the photo in the white T-shirt with his arms folded, and the guy next to him in the baseball cap is Norm's neighbor, who is busting Craig's balls 'cause his hedge is getting trampled. Craig's response to the guy was, "You should be glad it's only your hedge because if it was a fence, we would have knocked that down too."

The truck tires were furnished by Goodyear for race car transportation because they were the same outer diameter as the racing tires.


Another photo of the driver change/fuel stop with the Cobra. Shelby's mechanic is checking the oil, a Goodyear guy is checking the air pressure, me (on the left) and Paul Nicolini (on the right) are hand pumping gas out of the 55-gal. drums into the tank of the Cobra, and Craig is waiting for Bobby Tatroe to get out so he can get in.

When we returned from the salt and were "freshening up" the jet car for display purposes around the country, we bought a used furniture trailer and modified one of our trucks into a tractor with a fifth wheel.


A Ford C-850 with a 534-inch gasoline engine.

While the sign painter was lettering the trailer, I had him paint the little message on the back door of the trailer.

I was very clever back then, or at least I thought so...

 

My mother lives in Rio Vista, CA where Craig's shop is now. One of his former crew guys and a mechanic there in town was saying Craig was working on an all new car. He has the design, the engines, and was looking for help building it.

His previous Spirit, the one that went up against the Andy Green driven Thrust SSC was sold to Steve Fossett. He was that billionaire who vanished in the Nevada desert in his little plane. Fossett renamed the car and had sent it to a shop for some work. It sat there the whole time while Fossett was still considered MIA and not dead.

When the family finally had Fossett declared dead, they went to the shop to retrieve the car, but it was in pieces. They called in Breedlove to see if he could do something with it to at least sell it. Breedlove came back heartbroken that the car he did 700+ mph was in such bad shape that it couldn't fixed enough to make a museum piece out of it.

Please note, this was a story from a guy who lived his whole life in Rio Vista and claimed he knew Breedlove and helped him on previous land speed projects. I have not yet confirmed it's validity.

Thank you, George, for posting such great pics and story.

 

Wow. Thanks!

As a kid the Wingfoot Express was my favorite LSR. I just thought it looked cool.

 

George, this is a fantastic thread...thanks for giving us an inside look at the car, crew and experience of LSR back then.

 

I think this is the Cobra that is now in Philley.http://www.oldcarsweekly.com/news/s...automobile-documented-u-s-department-interior Here's more history for the Cobra coupe.

 

I went to elementary school with Breedlove's daughter about 1966 in Costa Mesa, CA. and the school was able to arrange an "assembly" and the whole school turned out and filled a auditorium to SRO. A film was shown about the salt flat exploits and when the film ended Breedlove was rushed by hundreds of kids, including me, wanting his autograph. I wish I still had mine. It was a great show.

 

Youtube videos of the Spirt of America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYdBHlcALd8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HLEvrFfg-I

 

OMG!!!!....What an awesome thread. So much history. thank you so much for taking the time to post,pix,and writing. I remember reading about this stuff when I was just a kid, in chesterville maine. long way from Bonneville. lOVED IT THEN , AND LOVE IT NOW....went to Bonneville in 2006. An unreal experience. so so kewl............im 60 now

 

I have no doubt that the story is true, I've been to the Rio Vista shop on several occasions. Craig also has (or did have) a shop near the Reno, NV airport. And finally, Craig alternates between living in Rio Vista and his other home in Mexico, near Cabo.

Craig does have a new car on the drawing board, but soliciting for funds for sponsorship these days is not the same as it was in the 1960's. When we built the Sonic 1 in 1964-1965, the entire project, including all the salaries and running the car on the salt for five weeks, cost Goodyear about $300K, and I think another $30K from Shell Oil. You couldn't do a major LSR project today for less than 7 figures.

 

Could you just imagine the neighbors that weren't into vehicles. To find out your neighbor was building a vehicle with a giant jet engine on it with plans of going 600mph. You'd think your neighbor was insane!

What a great story, and amazing accomplishments.

 

This thread is beyond the pale!!! This is why HAMB is such a great site!

 

Some info on the Shelby Cobra Daytona becoming the first car on the National Historic Vehicle Register:

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/...ehicle-on-national-historic-vehicle-register/

 

Thanks for the post!!! GREAT historical storyline & pics!!!!!!! LOVE reading this stuff!!

 

Rooming with Swingle had to be somthing else to say the least! JC

 

George, Thank you for the story and the photos!!! Please keep the history coming!

 

Thank you very much for sharing all the photos and giving us such good details of how it was.... Pioneers big time........

 

As a child of the 60s, I remember seeing the old 16mm films of Breedlove and Arfons at the Sabre's Auto Shows in Denver. Amazing stuff! I recall watching a documentary on Breedlove. In it, he shared the story of how he experienced a great deal of anxiety about driving the LSR cars and went to a psychiatrist to try to get some help. He told how the shrink said that the anxiety was probably the only normal thing about him. That relationship didn't last long