Interest in Steam-Powered Cars Percolates Among Enthusiasts
It’s the future, not the past, that makes Jim Crank look lovingly at his restored 1925 Doble, a big, powerful car that could easily steal the scene in a movie about Prohibition gangsters.
One of only 20 ever made, the car is run by a power plant that Crank thinks could turn around the nation’s hunt for a cheap, pollution-free way to get around.
Pop open the hood and take a look: Inside is what seems to be a big kitchen pot but is actually a boiler. The Doble is a steam-driven car, its boiler fueled by just about anything, including kitchen grease, with little harm to the environment.
In an era of electric cars and so-called hybrids that captivate the motor-show crowd, a few people think the steam engine--a variant of the one that came and went early in this century--could be America’s best-kept automotive secret.
Crank is one of the most fervent believers. Besides talking up the promise of steam, he has bought up turbines and other equipment that past inventors have used and even designed a steam car that, he claims, was clocked at 145 mph.
“It . . . has fast acceleration, good speed and good range, especially when compared to the electric car,” the 62-year-old retired engineer says about steam cars. “The electric is a joke for anything except short run, flatland city shopping.”
Doble and other steam cars--including the Stanley Motor Carriage Co.’s famous Stanley Steamer--were common when the gasoline car was the plaything of rich men and the electric was popular with little old ladies, Crank said.
Steam moved trains, ships and scores of other machines, including elevators and printing presses.
As for the steam car, it didn’t fail, but was superseded by the internal combustion engine, Crank says.
That was then and this is now. Today, the gasoline car’s advantages--efficiency and economy--are increasingly weighed against its drawbacks--pollution and the cost of fuel.
The steam car demands only water and just about any liquid fuel, even kerosene.
“The fuel doesn’t have to undergo expensive processing like it does for the internal combustion engine,” Crank said.
Early on, the steam car was hampered by the timing of crucial engineering developments.
At first, it was a prisoner of the 20 to 45 minutes needed to fire up the boiler, while gas-powered cars had to be cranked manually into life.
In 1912, Cadillac came out with a reliable self-starter, allowing gas engines to take a huge lead. In 1916, Doble introduced a starting breakthrough for its steam car--it started right up with no waiting. But by that time the gasoline car had the market cornered.
“These cars were too late, very expensive, and too few were produced for them to make any dent in the success of the gasoline-engined motorcar,” Crank said.
He should know: He is the Doble Steam Motors Corp., a San Francisco firm that went out of business in 1933. A few years back, Crank came up with $200 and did the paperwork needed to gain the title from the state.
He has, however, coupled the name of that company with the physical remnants of another: the steam efforts of Bill Lear, the developer of the Lear jet, who got into steam research in the 1970s. Lear spent a lot of his own and federal money before giving up on a steam-powered bus. Crank got Lear’s equipment for just $500.
Crank used an experimental boiler from Lear to build a steam-powered race car that went on to beat the steam car land speed record of a little over 127 mph, set in 1906 by a Stanley steam car. The car designed by Crank hit 145.6 mph in 1985.
With automotive giants searching for alternatives to traditional engines, Crank thinks it’s time to give steam another chance.
His dream is to assemble a crew, find $5 million in backing and build a steam car to match gas high-performance cars.
Looking ahead, he’s also looking back. In 1925, the Doble steam car was the master of the road, he said, unbeatable in acceleration and top speed.
“Nothing produced in America or Europe could hope to stay with one.”
