'BRUTUS'' the 1908 46 Litre beast!

[sarah]

An extraordinary vehicle that was constructed in the Sinheim Auto & Technik Museum's workshops under the project name ?Brutus?, is - like the Maybach special racing car - also following the tradition of the Blitzen-Benz. After WW I many aircraft engines were available since Germany was not allowed to own aircraft. These engines were installed on old undercarriages and used to perform races. An undercarriage with chain drive of 1908 was being used as a basis for the ?Brutus? project. A 12-cylinder aircraft engine with 46 liters displacement and a constant performance of 500 hp at 1500 rpm, that was located in Spain by our club member Hans Dittes, was mounted on top. The attraction of this vehicle is not least due to the fact that it is going to reach a speed of far beyond 100 km/h at about 800 rpm only. After several years of hard work the vehicle was completed. It already was presented in action at many events.


[video=youtube_share;2pcRRk0msas]http://youtu.be/2pcRRk0msas[/video]

 

[AmericanThunder]

This was on an episode of Top Gear a couple of years ago with Clarkson driving it and a British built, Spitfire engined equivalent.
Years ago I always wanted to build a Spitfire engined 2nd Gen Firebird - I was going to call it the SpitFireBird, but the engineering was beyond me!

 

[TransAmDan]

What a piece of engineering. The rocker arms havn't changed much over the years. You've think with all that engine capacity you would put a bit more rubber than a bicycle tyre between you and the road. What was the torque on that thing?

 

[AmericanThunder]

Huge gobs of torque and straight from idle I should think.
When you think about it, the internal combustion engine has hardly changed at all. Sure its seen changes as engineering has improved but the fundamental concepts haven't changed at all, in over 100 years.

Now if they could just make an electric motor that didn't suffer the restrictions of batteries and sounded like a V8.........