If so, we're not even sure we could handle it. Throughout the twentieth century, some of the finest automotive engineers have experimented with putting propellers on the front of cars, and the results look brilliant. Here's our gallery of the coolest propeller cars in history.
A motor car at Brooklands race track with a propeller for extra speed, 1911
(Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Count Bertrand de Lesseps prepares to demonstrate his Auto Aero in 1912.
(from Special-Interest Autos Magazine, 1976, via Hemmings)
Hélica, "the plane without wings", by Marcel Leyat in Paris, between 1913 and 1926.
The first Hélicas were 3-wheelers, but after many accidents Leyat started to produce 4-wheeled ones. On the picture below you can see early prototype from 1914 with the following text on the windows: "1st artillery regiment, 42nd battalion, group of 120".
23 of them were built in 13 years.
In 1927, this late streamlined model achieved the unbelievable speed of 106 mph (171 km/h) on the L' Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, near Paris.
(via helica.info and Retronaut)
The Sizaire-Berwick Wind Wagon armored car from WWI
(via mdolla)
A car with wings and a propeller on TImes Square, New York, 1924
Invented by A. H. Russell in Nutley, New Jersey.
(via Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Wind Wagon, built by 15-year-old Ted Jameson in 1929
The Boy Mechanic (published in 1925) offered hundreds of detailed drawings of things a boy could build. One chapter was titled “Building a Wind Wagon.” It is unknown how many were built but this one was constructed in the late 1920s.The angle-iron frame is mated to a beam front axle with a pair of bicycle-style wheels. It is powered by a Harley-Davidson v-twin motorcycle engine which, instead of driving the wheels, drives an airplane propeller. The wind wagon has neither front nor rear suspension. It also has very little torque, so its acceleration and hill climbing abilities leave something to be desired. It was found to work best on a frozen lake. – according to Lane Motor Museum.
(via Lane Motor Museum)
Helicron, France, 1932
Only one was ever produced, which was discovered in 2000 in a barn after six decades of sleeping. Unfortunately the original motor (allegedly from a smaller airplane) was lost, but now it has a Citroen GS engine from 1960 and could reach the speed of 75 mph, when its propeller is spinning at maximum rpm.
(via Lane Motor Museum)
A weird-looking air-driven car with a four-bladed propeller, said to reach 80 miles an hour and cover thirty miles on a gallon of fuel, 1932
(via Popular Mechanics, December 1932)
A Maybach with a seven-cylinder radial aircraft engine and propeller, 1938
(from Special-Interest Autos Magazine, 1976, via Hemmings)
The legendary Schlörwagen Pillbug (1936) with a huge propeller and Soviet a five-cylinder air-cooled radial aircraft engine (100 or 125 hp), added during WWII.
(via Flaviendachet)
The Argentine Aerocar, with the top speed of 100 mph (160 kmh), 1955
Designed by Eugenio Grosovich and built by Gianfranco Bricci. It had a 90-bhp Chevy OHV 6 engine. Its biggest disadvantage was poor acceleration up to 40 mph.
(via Gizmodo, Hemmings and Federico-Kirbus)
KA-30, the "Dream Of The Soviet Youth", 1969
You can see more amazing snowmobiles here.
(via English Russia and wreckamovie)
This BMW Isetta powered by a 190hp Lycoming airplane engine
(via aerocar/Youtube)
Bonus: The wind-powered DWFTTW (Downwind Faster Than The Wind), made mostly of foam by Rick Cavallaro, with the help of Google, Joby Energy and San Jose State University in 2010
This four-wheeled vehicle has a 17-foot-tall propeller (5.2 m), and once could reach a top speed 2.86 times faster than the wind.
(via Wired)
Is there anything cooler than a car with a giant propeller?