Opel RAK2 1928

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Famine

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RAK? Well, it's short for "rakete" - rocket...

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, Opel had a brief flirtation with solid propellant. I guess it was the done thing in 1930s Germany.

Step 1 was the Opel-RAK - or RAK-1 as it's helpfully known now. This was based on an Opel 7/34 factory race car, with a selection of Friedrich Wilhelm Sander's rockets strapped to the back. After a series of tests, it eventually reached 62mph/100km/h.

Later RAK models ran on rails and crashed (RAK3) or exploded (RAK4), while the RAK1 rocket plane - the world's first - first exploded and, when built into a new plane, crashed. But it's the RAK2 we're interested in. Why? Because it looks like this:

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Based on a cut down Opel 10/40 and powered by 24 of Sander's powder rockets, RAK2 produced 6000kg of thrust. It carried enough black powder propellant to level residential buildings. As in a neighbourhood of them.

Driven by Fritz von Opel himself (grandson of company founder Adam) the RAK2 reached 148mph/238km/h at the Berlin-AVUS speedway on May 23rd 1928...

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Note the wings used in that run to keep RAK2 on the ground! Who thought aerodynamics in race cars was a modern invention?

Of course, being rocket propelled it's kinda hard to throttle and it has a maximum fuel range of about 2 minutes, so there's limited use in a racing game, but hey... Gran Turismo is about improving reality, not slavishly aping it!
 
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I first came across the Rak Opel as a small boy when looking through one of my Dad's old books and was instantly fascinated.

What about a more modern, but similar concept - the Walt Arfons Wingfoot Express 2 which reached 605mph in 1965 - it couldn't claim any official records because it took too long to reload / refuel. A similar fate befell the Stan Barrett attempt - he is thought to have broken the sound barrier many years before it was officially broken.

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Very impressed piece of car history, 1930 ... and a car like this is almost incredible.
Great research Famine.
You got my vote!
👍


By the way, my first car was an Opel!
 
I've built several scale model working and non-working rocket cars. Other experience with rocketry included a stint in NAR (National Association of Rocketry) when I designed, built, flew and recovered numerous model rockets, including a 4-stage. My first steps in rocketry were in launching zinc-dust pipe rockets in street gutters as a boy. And I have even run oxidized fuel (a key technology in rocketry) in karts.

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I know that I have heard of this car before, but I have never seen any details about it that I remember.

Quite impressive. However, running it on a track with corners.... Yeah, not very wise! ;)
 
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