'Kettle' ready for record attempt

turbo#topic

A team of British car enthusiasts has arrived in the US to make an attempt at breaking the land speed record for steam-powered vehicles.

The record is currently held by American Fred Marriott who drove a Stanley steam car at 127mph in 1906 at the Daytona Beach Road Course.

But now more than 100 years on, the British team hopes to overhaul it by reaching a velocity of 170mph in their 25ft-long British Steam Car, dubbed the "fastest kettle in the world".

Some last minute changes are being made before they put the "kettle" through its paces at the Edwards Air Force base in California and try to crack the longest officially recognised land speed record.

Charles Burnett III, nephew of Lord Montague of Beaulieu, who made it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999 for an offshore water speed record of 137mph, will be getting behind the wheel and the team hopes his uncle's success will rub off on him.

The car is made from a mixture of lightweight carbon-fibre composite and wrapped with aluminium, but its power is generated through 12 boilers where water is pumped into the boilers at up to 50 litres a minute producing three megawatts of heat.

The steam is then heated to 400 degrees Celsius and injected into the turbine at more than twice the speed of sound.

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