Typically, when most people talk about natural gas power, they are talking about how a gas boiler service helps to keep their home heated or their food cooked.
However, fewer people may be aware that at one point a car powered by a natural gas turbine came within eight laps of winning the most famous race in the world and also competed in the Formula One World Championship.
In both cases, it was a prime example of using gas power to think outside the box, and in both cases, the technology was banned outright before its remarkable potential had a chance of being realised.
- The Turbocar
In 1966, Ken Wallis, an inventor that was a distant relative to the inventor of the bouncing bomb used in the Dambusters campaign, had a rather interesting idea to try and adapt the types of gas turbine engines used in aviation for use in a car.
His belief was that the engines would be incredibly reliable owing to their simplicity, and because they were light and had a compact form factor compared to the gigantic engines of the 1960s, they could potentially have a huge power and speed advantage compared to competitive machinery.
Unfortunately, nobody but Mr Wallis believed in the idea. Dan Gurney, the original winner of the Cannonball Run and at the time an owner-driver running every possible racing league possible, passed on the idea.
Carroll Shelby, one of the most famous race car manufacturers in history, called the concept “hogwash” and immediately rejected it.
However, STP’s Andy Granatelli had enough faith in the idea to at least try it, and by 1967, the car was on the grid being driven by Parnelli Jones, who had been offered $100,000 in cash upfront as well as half of any prize money to drive the car.
Given that nobody believed it would work, it was to the surprise of everyone both in and out of the STP team that Mr Jones qualified sixth for the 1967 Indianapolis 500, quickly taking the lead once the race began and only relinquishing it eight laps from the finish after a transmission fault.
The car would be classified sixth overall, surpassing even the loftiest of expectations. However, an attempt to replicate the feat would be short-lived as a crash during practice in 1968 destroyed the Turbocar and it never raced again.
- Lotus 56
Colin Chapman, the mercurial head of Lotus, saw the potential of a car that nearly won the world’s most famous motor race and decided to work with Andy Granatelli to combine the aerodynamically efficient Lotus 56 body with a Pratt & Whitney STB-62 gas turbine engine designed with lightness and control in mind.
However, the USAC, the governing body that oversaw the Indianapolis 500, had reduced the size of air intakes in an attempt to stop another entry like the Turbocar, which meant that the aerodynamics would have to make up for that lost power.
However, whilst none of the three cars finished, Joe Leonard’s entry managed to take the lead before a fuel pump shaft failed. The USAC banned turbine cars outright after this.