The "Proud American" and "Bonneville Boss" Rocket Truck

Here's an interesting tid-bit of land speed racing history that I had never heard of. It's a pretty slick little package called the "Proud American" rocket car, and that gets hauled around be the equally subtly monikered "Bonneville Boss" Rocket Truck. I know, it looks like a life size Hot Wheel, doesn't it?

But besides by affection for Hot Wheels, this interesting paring plays to another one of my lifelong loves: Land Speed Racing. Besides that fact that it's got big, OK, huge, speeds going for it, what I also like about LSR competition is that the rulebook is frighteningly thin.

You want to run a modified school bus propelled by axial flow turbine fueled by hydrazine, LOX and bio-methane from your chicken farm? Fine by the rulebook, just make sure it passes the safety inspection and don't do anything stupid with it. How can you not love a form of racing like that?

So yeah, I've been following what happens out on The Salt for my whole life, but The "Proud American" and "Bonneville Boss" Rocket Truck are news to me. Although sadly not a working rocket car (which is why I most likely never heard of it), the "Proud American," was built in the early '70s by a fellow by the name of Tony Fox, who was an inventor, businessman and, seemingly, pretty much into the whole "go fast" thing. Also working with Tony was a rocket specialist by the name of Ky Michaelson.

Their idea was to have the "Proud American" make a run at the land speed record in 1976, America's bicentennial year, and a time of amazingly kitschy and inescapable bicentennial crap. Not that the "Proud American" looks like a bad design, it's just that the bicentennial crap was everywhere. Anyway, Fox and Michaelson's goal was to break the speed of sound. Laudable, to be sure, but that is a VERY tough nut to crack.

The "Proud American" was hauled around on tour to raise funds for the effort, which, unfortunately, didn't turn out so well. Said truck, the "Bonneville Boss" transporter, was designed by Dean Moon, (yes, that Dean Moon). The rocket car/transporter combo has been sitting in storage for some 30 years, and is now owned by a guy by the name of Tom Shaughnessy.

The 5-axle "Bonneville Boss" transporter is powered by an Olds Toronado drivetrain driving all four of the front wheels. Those four front wheels also handle all the steering. So, if you want to get technical about it, the "Bonneville Boss" transporter features both four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering.

The six wheels out back are there to carry the weight of the rocket car while the front four wheels are putting the power down and pointing the car. Inside the trucks cab there's seating for three, with the driver sitting furthest back and in the middle, sort of like a backwards McLaren F1. Upholstery? Denim and vinyl baby! The gauges are Stewart Warners and there's a sunroof, and sidepipes.

Now, about that rocket car.

If you ask me, theoretically speaking, rockets are the way to go. They have a much better power to weight ration than turbines, and they can accelerate much harder too. They do, of course, have their downsides. This is, literally, rocket science, and if you don't get the sums right, if the mixtures aren't right, or the pump pressure is a little off ... well, let's just put it this way: Why do you think NASA has the control bunker MILES away from the launch pad?

Sure, you could go with a solid rocket motor, but those have a huge downside: They can't be throttled. You literally go form zero power, to full power at the flip of a switch. Controllability becomes a non-issue because you can't control that much thrust. At least not by hand.

So, if you have the funding (NASA-levels of funding with Fox and Michaelson didn't), you could really knock down some barriers using rockets.

Source: AutoBlog