Monday 13th August 2018

1968 Challenger II sets piston-driven speed record

If you think 450mph in a 50 year-old car sounds scary, wait until you see the vid...

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The story of Danny Thompson's Challenger II is a fascinating one; originally built by his father Mickey Thompson in 1968 (and replacing Challenger I, which went through 400mph), the car was meant to race at Bonneville in 1968. However, rain washed away the salt that year, and so Speed Week didn't run. In fact, the car never ran at all, and when Mickey Thompson was killed in 1988 the car was put into storage by Danny.

It wasn't until 2016 that Challenger II saw the light of day again, Thompson junior recommissioning his father's incredible vehicle to set a new record at that year's Bonneville Speed Week for an "unblown fuel streamliner" of 406.70mph. Confident that it could go quicker, Danny Thompson was back at Bonneville this weekend gone - 50 years since Challenger II was originally meant to be there - to break another record.

And break it he did, securing a 448.7mph average in the 5,000hp, Hemi-powered, four-wheel drive Challenger II to make it the fastest ever piston-engined, wheel driven car. It surpassed the 439mph set by George Poteet in his Speed Demon, the previous record-holding incumbent. The Challenger II reached 450.9mph on one run, 44.3mph faster than the Challenger I had achieved in its one-way record attempt back in 1960.

So bravo Danny, for restoring a piece of family and land speed record history, plus having the guts to do more than seven miles a minute in a 50 year-old car. Finally, if you're wondering just how crazy a drive that really is, there was a GoPro in the car... See below for one of the craziest onboards you'll watch for a while!

 

[Sources: Jalopnik; images from Danny Thompson on Twitter and ThompsonLSR.com

 

[BogBeast]

Now, I don't know a lot about driving on salt at 450MPH, but that looked like a huge amount of steering input...

balls.of. steel...

[7795]

There is a lot of play in that steering wheel...glug.

[RumbleOfThunder]

What a fantastic story! Would be nice to know more on what's powering it and if the Hemi remains period as well.

[unsprung]

technical specifications courtesy of the team's website:
http://thompsonlsr.com/

• The streamliner is four wheel drive. Each engine drives one set of wheels. The drivetrains mirror each other exactly, so the front engine is actually mounted backwards in the chassis.

• The car's skin is made-up of 68 hand formed aluminum panels. They are connected to the subframe via Dzus buttons.

• The engines are dry blocks (waterless), which means all of the cooling is provided by the fuel. A single run will consume around 50 gallons of nitro/methanol blend. As a result, the car's weight drops by 500 pounds over the course of a run.

• The tires are a prototype nylon weave backed with banded steel. There is only 1/32 of an inch of rubber. Any more would spin off due to heat and expansion. They are custom made by Mickey Thompson Tires.

• Primary stopping power is provided by dual parachutes with four foot blossoms. The car is also equipped with carbon ceramic disk brakes.

• The Challenger 2 measures 32 feet in length, with a height of 27 inches at the tip and 37 inches at the canopy, and is 34 inches wide. It weighs 5700 pounds when fueled.

[timrud]

Digi dash is looking well for 50 years old

[EyeHeartSpellin]

Bloody Hell! Full lock at 1:01 - Massive Balls.

[re33]

timrud said:

Digi dash is looking well for 50 years old

You took time to write that but not actually read any information? Check out http://thompsonlsr.com/about/ . The engines aren't original either. I don't understand why that would be a problem?

Great project and great achievement.

[Gandahar]

I do like the bit

The tires are a prototype nylon weave backed with banded steel. There is only 1/32 of an inch of rubber. Any more would spin off due to heat and expansion. They are custom made by Mickey Thompson Tires

That's less than 1mm and made by the team it seems. Nice work. Length wise that must be the longest dab of oppo apart from Thrust SSC .

It's got a digital dash and loads of rivets, epic.......

[gonnagetyoursBenny]

The numbers on their website etc are different to in the PH article aren't they?

[Matt Harper]

Yesterday's effort...

[ruminator]

Is the flag on the tail the wrong way around?

[CanAm]

ruminator said:

Is the flag on the tail the wrong way around?

No.
Flags on cars and planes etc are usually painted with the "flagpole" to the front so it looks like a real flag being flown.

[ruminator]

CanAm said:

o.
Flags on cars and planes etc are usually painted with the "flagpole" to the front so it looks like a real flag being flown.

Ahh right, understood. Incredibly brave!

[Chris944]

It was, for me, a boring video. Okay, the steering inputs looked interesting but nothing else was, with no view through the windscreen or impression of speed.

[HustleRussell]

Chris944 said:

It was, for me, a boring video. Okay, the steering inputs looked interesting but nothing else was, with no view through the windscreen or impression of speed.

I was hoping it'd be more of a driver's eye view, showing the horizon and speed display... But there was a degree of awe when I realised "Wait, what? That's it? It's achieved over 400mph and covered 8 miles in about a minute and a half?"

[Jonny_]

Yep, that's some nerve from the driver, and some machine as well!

Didn't expect it to get up to speed that quickly, what with the transmission having only 3 gears. But then I suppose 5000bhp and huge amounts of torque will make up for that...

Hoping to find some footage of the run from different angles; I'd love to see just how out of shape the car gets when he makes those sharp inputs.

[only1ian]

Am i right to think he’s constantly correcting the torque from a clockwise turning pro shaft. That’s why he’s predominantly making left inputs

[spikyone]

EyeHeartSpellin said:

Bloody Hell! Full lock at 1:01 - Massive Balls.

Comments like this miss an important point. This is a car designed to be driven in a straight line at extreme speed. The steering rack will be considerably slower than on a road car, because you don't need massive steering of the road wheels. Having a very slow rack gives far better resolution of control, allowing for tiny corrections. Steering with a large angle would see the car dig into the salt flat and barrel roll, Hammond style.

I'd bet that the "full lock" translated to no more than a couple of degrees of steering turn for the road wheels.

ETA: I will agree wholeheartedly with "massive balls". That took some cojones...

[Mark-C]

Is this also the driven wheel record?

I get what the jet engined stuff does in terms of raw speed but it means nothing to me because it just doesn’t feel like it’s a car ...

[0a]

Incredible. Well done.