A team hoping to bag the steam-powered Land Speed Record for Britain has successfully completed final UK testing before heading to the Mojave Desert.
The rear-wheel-drive British Steam Car weighs three tons, and its twelve LPG burners boil enough hot water to make 23 cups of tea a second. However, there's no time to sit down and enjoy a brew as there's only enough water to keep the 13,000rpm steam turbine spinning for three minutes at a time - enough, the team hopes, to take their unique machine to a new World Record in the coming months.
The British Steam Car project was launched in 1999 to take one of the longest-standing and unusual LSR records. The steam-power category record was set in 1906 by Fred Marriott in the US driving a Stanley Steamer car, but the British team hopes to raise the bar to 170mph at the Edwards Airforce Base in California's Mojave Desert in June.