This Doble E-20 from 1925 driving 210 km/u on steam

Posted on 03-05-2014 at 16:59 by MrBrown – 10 Comments”

Drive on steam is so bad, this Doble E-20 is almost 90 years old and going to modern Bluemotion easy to overlook.

No one less than autofanaat Jay Leno is in the possession of the stoommobiel (and a turbine car). He tells us in the following half-hour video how impractical and ridiculously cool this thing is.

The Doble E-20 dates back to 1925 and is powered by a 4 cylinder with 400 degrees Celsius hot steam is filled, under a pressure of 52 bar. That is good for 150 hp and -don’t – 1350 Nm of torque!

According to Jay, is the start of the car has a 13 step process, not very useful. But if he start, it is a great experience. The first owner of the E-20, Howard Hughes, drove the car to its top speed of 212 km/h. Bizarre fast for that time, that’s mainly because of the high torque that a steam engine produces. The car has no transmission, and like a electric motor at one blow his top, ‘gas’, with a lever on the handlebar.

To the car to make it safer to Jay has his Doble what is modernized and he edited, among other discs, because the brakes of 90 years ago, are at such high speeds are not very effective.

Why we today no longer on steam? Mainly because it is very inefficient. A lot of energy is lost in heat instead of traction forces.