Goldenrod (car)
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Goldenrod is an American streamliner land speed racing car which held the wheel-driven land speed record from 1965 to 1991. It was owned by Bob "Butch" and Bill Summers, of Ontario, California. Bob Summers drove the car to set the land speed record. The car is powered by four fuel injected Chrysler Hemi engines mounted inline and created a total output of Script error: No such module "convert"..Script error: No such module "Unsubst". The car was originally built in Southern California by a team that included James Crosby.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Before finding their final success, the two brothers contacted a fuel specialist and racing equipment pioneer and inventor named Tony Capanna, owner of Wilcap Co. (at that time in Torrance California).Script error: No such module "Unsubst". They were having trouble getting the speed they wanted with the 4 engines set in 2 rows side by side. Capanna suggested they put the engines in line and have it streamlined. In this configuration it was called Goldenrod. Capanna advised them to get aerodynamic advice from a Lockheed engineer, Walter Korff.[1] The Goldenrod configuration was refined during a wind tunnel test in the Caltech Script error: No such module "convert". wind tunnel. The resulting drag coefficient of 0.1165, with a frontal area of Script error: No such module "convert"., is one of the lowest ever achieved for a car.Template:Fact A scale model of the proposed car was shown to Hot Rod's managing editor Dick Wells in August 1964.[2]
The brothers found success on November 12, 1965, when Goldenrod set the wheel-driven record (a class introduced due to the controversy over Spirit of America)[3] at Script error: No such module "convert". over the flying mile, an FIA record which was held for 42 years 9 months and 14 days. The record was unofficially broken in 1991 by Al Teague with his supercharged Hemi-powered Spirit of '76, which went Script error: No such module "convert"., short of the one percent increase (to at least Script error: No such module "convert".) required for an official record which would have been . Later the Burklands' 411 Streamliner set the official new record at Script error: No such module "convert". on 2008/09/26 (Class AI-I-11). Goldenrod was not supercharged, so it still held the class (AI-II-11) record[4] until 21 September 2010, when Charles Nearburg in the Spirit of Rett increased this to Script error: No such module "convert"..[5] The car went on tour for many years all across the U.S., then first ventured outside the country in 2000, when she was placed where the cricket pitch is, with the other land speed record cars, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed . The surviving Summers brother, Bill, attended. (Bob died in 1992).
The Henry Ford museum bought the car in 2002, restored her via a US government grant (Save America's Treasures), and had her on display as of September 2006. The restoration was performed by former Hot Rod Magazine editor John Baechtel of Landspeed Restorations and Mike Cook of Cook Motorsports, with grateful acknowledgment to the many contributors who supported the project. Baechtel subsequently published a 300-page book about the Summers Brothers and the restoration of Goldenrod, entitled "Goldenrod: The Resurrection of America's Speed King".
“It’s about time it went away,” Bill Summers told "LandSpeed" Louise Ann Noeth during an interview on the new record, “It’s been a long time to have that record - 44 years, 10 months and 12 days. My brother Butch and I did everything we could with that car and then sold it to the Henry Ford Museum."
Speaking of Charles Nearburg finally breaking his brother's record, Bill Summers said, "That he [Nearburg] achieved those speeds with only two-wheel drive and one naturally aspirated engine is a phenomenal achievement, but they had good course conditions and when conditions are good, cars go fast." Bill Summers died on 12 May 2011.
Notes
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- ↑ Korff, Walter H., "The Aerodynamic Design of the Goldenrod - To Increase Stability, Traction and Speed," SAE paper 660390, presented at the Society of Automotive Engineers Mid-Year Meeting, June 1966, Detroit Michigan.
- ↑ "The Hot Rod Archives", Hot Rod January 2024, p.6
- ↑ Northey, Tom. "Land Speed Record: The Fastest Men on Earth", in Northey, Tom, ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis, 1974), Volume 10, p. 1166.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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