110 year old car with record engine restored and running

[Irbis]

[SpottedKitty]

Good grief, it's a Gee Bee Racer on four wheels! I think I've seen pictures of this, I was wondering why the body was so tall...

<looks again> Chain drive...?

I'm trying to decide whether letting the old Top Gear crew loose with this roaring monster would have been a good idea, or if Hilarity Would Have Ensued.

[Borgholio]

Yep...chain drive. Turning the volume up on my speakers...no wonder this is called the BEAST of Turin. Holy shit.

[Irbis]

I was wondering why the body was so tall...

Well, 28.5 L engine has to go somewhere, eh?

What is crazy is the fact it might not be that powerful by modern standards, but it still has largest torque of any racing car ever produced, even Veyron with 3-10x stronger engine (depending if you count actual or nominal power) has less...

<looks again> Chain drive...?

Even more crazy is that first time it ran, it was on cobbled and dirt roads (not counting major highways)

LEGENDARY 28-LITRE FIAT S76 DRIVES FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 100 YEARS

RESTORED ‘BEAST OF TURIN’ UNLEASHED AT LAST!

The Fiat S76, unofficially the fastest car in the world in 1911, has been driven for the first time in over 100 years – tackling the Goodwood Hillclimb during its first post-restoration test run.

The feat is due to be repeated at FOS this year, when the S76 will be one of the stars of a special category of ‘earth-shattering Edwardian leviathans’.

Following a 10-year restoration process, and a static appearance at the 2014 Festival of Speed when we had hoped the car might be ready to be coaxed into life, the S76 was actually fired up for the first time in a century last December – generating huge interest among car enthusiasts worldwide.

With the mechanical issues that prevented the S76 firing up at FOS last year finally sorted, its enthusiastically ‘hands-on’ owner Duncan Pittaway brought the S76 back to the 1.16-mile Goodwood Hillclimb a couple of weeks ago for its first test run since the restoration, inviting Lord March along for the ride in the passenger seat.

The amazing moment in automotive history was captured by filmmaker Stefan Marjoram who has been documenting the restoration. Watch the video and you’ll understand why the car was known in-period as ‘The Beast of Turin’.

Just two S76s were produced by the Italian manufacturer, with the aim of snatching the records for the flying kilometre and flying mile from the ‘Blitzen’ Benzes. The S76 achieved the mile record with Pietro Bordino at the wheel at Saltburn Sands in 1911 and was officially recorded at over 135mph on a kilometre attempt at Oostenede in Belguim, only to be denied the record as it was unable to complete a return run within the specified one hour.

While one car was dismantled by Fiat after the First World War to prevent rival manufacturers obtaining its technical secrets, the other was purchased by Russian aristocrat Boris Soukhanov and eventually made its way to Australia, where it was modernised and campaigned as a ‘Fiat Racing Special’.

Enthusiast engineer Pittaway (who incidentally plans to drive the S76 to the Festival of Speed from his base near Bristol), brought the chassis back to the UK in 2003 and reunited it with the original 28.5-litre, four-cylinder engine from the dismantled car.

This fabulous machine is indicative of an era in which motor racing was in its infancy and the flat-out and fearless competitors would do battle over hundreds of miles of dusty and cobbled roads with danger never far away.

[SpottedKitty]

Even more crazy is that first time it ran, it was on cobbled and dirt roads (not counting major highways)

My spine and gluteus maximi are cringing in sympathy with the driver.

[Venator]

I was wondering why the body was so tall...

Well, 28.5 L engine has to go somewhere, eh?

What is crazy is the fact it might not be that powerful by modern standards, but it still has largest torque of any racing car ever produced, even Veyron with 3-10x stronger engine (depending if you count actual or nominal power) has less...

For those curious, it's rated at 300-320hp depending on source, and 2000 lb-ft of torque.

Making for somewhere around 10.5hp/L, or about a tenth of the power-to-capacity ratio of a modern Kia. How times change...

[Irbis]

For those curious, it's rated at 300-320hp depending on source, and 2000 lb-ft of torque.

For comparison, modern, distantly related FXXK has 1035 hp and "just" 664 lb-ft of torque.

[Venator]

For those curious, it's rated at 300-320hp depending on source, and 2000 lb-ft of torque.

For comparison, modern, distantly related FXXK has 1035 hp and "just" 664 lb-ft of torque.

That's about as tenuous a connection as saying that a Rolls Royce Phantom is "distantly related" to a Centurion tank, but the point about power/torque output stands.

Another way of looking at it - 320hp means that this thing was about three times more powerful than most WWI fighter aircraft.

[Broomstick]

Uh... there is fire shooting out of the thing!

Not so much "chitty-chitty-bang-bang" as "KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!"

Is that the only one and has Jay Leno expressed interest in purchasing it?

[Napoleon the Clown]

I worked out approximate math in my head, and this thing has peak torque under 800 RPM. So, that makes horsepower comparisons very, very difficult to do and hold meaning. A Kia Fote with the 1.6 liter would, at the same RPM range, be putting out somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 horsepower if the figures I tracked down are accurate. Or, 3 and an eighth horsepower per liter. You need to account for the RPM the power is made at. hp=(torque*rpm)/5252

Hence naturally aspirated engines of low displacement needing to be revved into the stratosphere to put out high-ish horsepower. Without forcing a lot more air in, they quite simply cannot offer the same torque as a higher displacement engine. Which means lower horsepower at the same RPM.

Yeah, the engine on this monster doesn't even touch modern engines. We can get substantially more out of each liter now than we could before, but just looking at peak horsepower between two vehicles tells you absolutely nothing when RPM isn't factored in.

[SpottedKitty]

Uh... there is fire shooting out of the thing!

Not so much "chitty-chitty-bang-bang" as "KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!"

If you look at the way it's put together, there's pretty much no exhaust pipe. Run a modern heavyweight engine on a test stand with no exhaust, and you'll get similar sound and fury, signifying "I MUST STICK MY FINGERS IN MY EARS!!!"

FWIW, and because I just watched Lewis Hamilton win at Silverstone this afternoon some types of F1 race cars also used to have almost no exhaust pipe; it's partly why they were so noisy.

[LaCroix]

I recently bodified a lawnmower by adding a 28hp V2( yes - 2 cylinder V - it is so ridiculous) engine. The exhaust pipe+ muffler was still in the mail, so I test-started that thing without it. I kid you not - I killed it in panic for it was about as loud as this beast, and all over the stable, horses (which were used to have loud machines operating right next to them with not wven twitching) were almost throwing themselves into fences to get as far away as possible from that beast. My ears were ringing for a hour.

With muffler, it sounds like a normal garden variety hand-mower.

That's why you can make a 50cc moped almost sound like a harley with one small hole in the muffler - these stupid pipes make a huge difference in sound.

[Irbis]

That's about as tenuous a connection as saying that a Rolls Royce Phantom is "distantly related" to a Centurion tank

*shrug* It's the same company, and almost the same type of car - what more do you want?

[LaCroix]

That's about as tenuous a connection as saying that a Rolls Royce Phantom is "distantly related" to a Centurion tank

*shrug* It's the same company, and almost the same type of car - what more do you want?

Cool, then my Stothert & Pitt roller from 54' is related to the Challenger tank?

[Sea Skimmer]

I saw this a while ago and loved it, its on par with a moderately early steam engine for power from a cylinder but who cares, forward the arm removing chain drive!

That's why you can make a 50cc moped almost sound like a harley with one small hole in the muffler - these stupid pipes make a huge difference in sound.

Yeah even a short pipe makes a big difference because it cools off the gas as it comes out of the chamber. This is also a huge part of how gun silencers function. After that first cooling though the pipe length becomes more relevant for providing expansion space, letting the pressure waves actually counteract each other even.