There once was a magic bullet for extra speed. It was a bolt-on device. Bolt it onto your rear axle and you instantly had 1,300 hp at the press of a button. Magic, right? The 130-pound device was called the Turbonique Drag Axle, and the Florida company that manufactured this and essentially a variety of other small rocket engines for racing conveniently sold them mail order. Hassle-free horsepower!
Middlebrooks had the knowledge and means to test his rocket racing ideas for the masses—and to sell them, too. Sometimes just because you can doesn’t mean you should. In the 1950s Middlebrooks patented and then marketed an electrically powered supercharger for racing. The added weight from extra batteries needed to power the device, lackluster results, and indictment but ultimately acquittal for mail fraud kept him searching for another, better nonparasitic form of instant power. By 1962 he was satisfied enough with his experiments in self-powered superchargers to start a company called Turbonique to provide instant, excessive, and frightening speed for racers wanting a sharp whack in the back.
More of this write up on the Hot Rod website. In 1960 You Could Buy a Mail-Order, 1,300HP Rocket Engine! - Hot Rod Networ
