The 313mph Backyard Hot Rod: The Awesome Story of Art Arfons' 2,500hp Anteater

I'm about to admit something you already know I'm an ARD arons fanboy look the guy was the best. I think it's hard to argue against the fact that arons was the most prolific and accomplished Roder in hi

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. Yeah, I think Mickey Thompson tops them all. but that guy was like a one-man industry in terms of a guy who literally did what he could with what he could really afford out of his own pocket. Arons art is untouchable. I have told the entire hi

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of art and Walter Aron in a longer podcast. which you can find on this channel, so we are not here to do that today, but instead we are going to analyze the history of one of the most forgotten but interesting cars in art, the green monster 14 or 15, depending on who you ask, Also known as the Dining Room, this was Art's first Bonville automobile and one that would eventually launch a career that would take him to a speed record of 576 mph and the immortality of the hot rod.

The road to the Anthill began in 1954 with the introduction of the green monster 2 this was the first car with an Allison V12 engine that Art and his half-brother Walt drove from the beginning, they were successful and not only in collecting trophies, the green monsters Dragsters were among the first, if not the first, wildly popular reserved at Drag Racing attractions. As the sport once knew, going faster and faster and continuing to set local racetrack and now national performance records, particularly at the top speed end, the Arons boys weren't just some guys running a grocery store in a mill in Ohio and No longer building crude machines, these guys were national driving royalty during the 1950s, both Walter and Art built a series of green monsters, sometimes multiple examples in the same year, as they were in demand, as the two boys knew to split up and conquer as many leads as possible. possible was the best way to make a lot of money and they were right when the years 1959 and 60 came around, both brothers had ideas to evolve themselves and their monster green machines for Walter, this was a commitment to something that no one had done before.

He created a jet-powered dragster by mounting a huge turbine engine on four wheels. The Green Monster 16 vehicle would change the course of drag racing, land speed racing, and exhibition motorsports forever. It would also change the relationship between Walter and art, and not in the best of cases. In many ways, but this is a video about art, so we're going to leave all that history right there and you can get the full breakdown on that podcast which you can also find on this channel instead of following Walt's example with a car to reaction. Racing on race tracks, Art decided to dedicate himself to building a land speed car and never wanted to skimp on things.

He would build this car to chase the world land speed record, not some minor class achievement of course, the machine he would choose to do this. There was something only he could imagine, but he chose a good vehicle to use as inspiration: John Cobb's Railton Special, which at the time held the world land speed record, and his friend Ed Snyder set out to build his own. better vehicle. and a faster version of that car, the machine would use a large engine placed behind the driver, would use tall wheels, have a low profile to slip in the wind, would be four-wheel drive, and in Art's mind would be capable Running about 425 mph, if it could, it would be fast enough to destroy the existing record set in 1947 at 394 mph by that same Realon special.

Every inch of this car was custom and in some ways it was like the other green monsters with the driver in front. and the engine behind it, but really beyond that, this was a whole new ballgame, it all came down to the engine, of course, the Allison V12, that 1,710 cubic Behemoth aircraft engine from World War II had been a basic power plant for the Aron boys since In 1954, they bought them for between 35 and 50 dollars back then, but this one was different, the engine used in this car also had a turbo supercharger installed. You'll often hear people talk about a eater and they'll say it was Double Supercharged or something, they're right, but not really.

Alice V12 engines have a single-stage centrifugal supercharger built into the engine. The single stage supercharger was very reliable and worked very well, but when the engineers wanted more power at higher altitudes. Especially for the P38 Lightning, they added a huge turbocharger which of course we now call a turbocharger. The turbocharger, especially on a P38 Lightning, was mounted on the top of the fuselage, flush with the actual body of the aircraft, but more importantly it was located. in front of the centrifugal supercharger, so the turbo would blow compressed air into the supercharger, which would compress it even more, jamming it in the engine, this would create more density of the atmosphere, this would create the ability to make more horsepower and that's it. , 80 years ago we had compounds.

Now this turbo supercharged version of the Allison was quite rare and made the engine much better in high altitude combat and made Arons a driver of one of the most powerful single engine piston vehicles on the planet. On paper, the engine certainly seems strong enough. To hit our 400m targets, the car used a two-speed transmission from a huge truck and actually shifted from first gear at 300mph. Incredibly, this was accomplished electronically through the use of solenoids, linkages, chains and other management. Rubbe Goldberg-looking devices, unlike the turbochargers seen in modern cars, which are usually mounted vertically. General Electric designs these turbochargers to lie flat, they integrate better into the fuselage of an aircraft that way, so if you've been looking for the turbocharger in these photos, it's located under the body behind Ard daron's head here's how was mounted the car's suspension was fairly rudimentary it used large full size industrial aircraft shocks on all four corners and some basic leaf springs as work progressed during the 1960 season between drag strip tours time was beginning to One of the things interesting thing about this project is that you can follow Art Rons around the country racing on different race tracks through newspapers at the same time while he was doing

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speed week coming up in August and the car had no appearance. of a body the only thing I desperately needed for aerodynamics the first mention of the yesterday's construction in the media that I could find came in the Akan Daily Times of August 6, 1960 the title of the story the eyes of the Akan driver world speed Mark at Utah Flats John Cobb, the Englishman who holds the world speed record for automobiles at 394 mph, may be deprived of that distinction by a quiet, handsome young man named Arar Fon from Akan Ohio, the 34-year-old arons who helps his mother to run. a feed mill and elevator south of Akan is one of those rare individuals who combine mechanical genius with the lust for high-speed arons reminiscent of Captain Eddie Rickenbacher has created an eracer which he calls the green monster in fact since 1955 he, his brother Walter and his partner Ed Snyder have built 15 racers called green monsters, the current green monster and the one with which he has good offers to set a new speed record this summer is the green monster. 15 Before 1955, art arons had never raised the hood. of a car in addition to adding water to the radiator in the summer of 1955 Ard and his wife June were on a Sunday drive when they arrived at an Akan street that had been blocked off for the purpose of holding a local drag racing event, irritated that They would be denied the right to travel down the street Ourons joined the passersby to investigate what this drag racing business was all about.

What had started as a brief stop to survey a crowd turned out to be a full afternoon watching drag racing by the time Arons and his wife left that afternoon he had been bitten by the speed bug from which he does not wish to recover determined to build a race car that would outperform anything on the Strip Aron immediately set to work on his first auto racing machine in that first He used a mobile six-cylinder engine, installed it in a homemade frame, and reached a top speed of 85 mph, although it had plenty of power at the time.

He hadn't heard of gear ratios and it was the wrong gear ratio that had maintained his top speed even though 85 mph wasn't fast enough for drag racing, it was good enough to whet his appetite and He still built a faster drag racer, even though he never finished high school and has yet to read his first book on the art of auto mechanics. arons has learned by doing his lessons, he has learned so well that highly trained professional engineers are amazed at his results, he himself welds and machines all of his own mechanisms, in fact, he does almost everything that is done with his green monsters in the En Three years he built 10 green monsters on his broken records at drag strips across the country.

In his green monster 11 he set a record for racers using gasoline as fuel and it stood for 4 years when he started from a standstill and caught up. 180 n mph in 9.7 seconds his green monster 6, which was the first car to officially exceed 150 mph on a race track, is now at the museum of speed in Daytona Beach, Florida, with his green monster 2 , Arons used his first aircraft engine obtained from the military. surplus of $35 the total cost of that racer reached $100 when arons had competed in his first drag race the only paint he had in the garage was green so he painted it green an awkward vehicle lumbered to the drag line for first time and the announcer on the public address system laughed and told the crowd Here comes the green monster.

The name stuck even though green is a color not allowed at the Indianapolis Speedway for superstitious reasons. Green has been the color of every Aron runner. The frame is built on square tubes salvaged from ACD scrapyards. The engine is a 1,710 cubic inch Allison aircraft engine that develops about 2,900 horsepower. A turbocharger has been added to compensate for the loss of horsepower experienced racing at the high altitudes of the Bonville Salt Flats when R.L. Williams, chief engineer of the automotive division of the Timkin Roller Bearing Company, heard about the incredible Racers. by Art Aron. He roughly estimated the loads and speeds imposed on the bearings, but couldn't believe that standard production bearings had been used, not only were they standard production bearings, but in most instances they had thousands of hard miles on them before Art got them. used, as they were purchased as part of used axles in junkyards, as Art did not want bearing problems while traversing the Utah desert, similar to those experienced by one of his West Coast competitors, he felt it.

The best thing for this world speed record was to try to use the engineering consulting services of the Timkin company. Engineers discovered that the pinion bearings would be loaded more than three times their rated capacity and run at 10,000 revolutions per minute, a fantastic speed; the eight wheel bearings were also being operated at 5,000 revolutions per minute with grease lubrication. Aron and the Challenger's model for the world speed record weighs 4,000 and will cost you about $5,000 for labor, his and his partner's time, and for parts of Greek descent, Arons is a handsome Un young man who is 6 feet tall and weighs 185 pounds, he and his attractive wife are the parents of two children, ages 111 and 4, and when in his calm, almost modest way he tells you that he is building his race car to reach 450 mph, you will feel safe. that he'll actually end the date now this is where a couple of really interesting parts of the story happen, from all indications, Arons and Snider.

Along with whoever was helping at the shop at Pickle Road and Aron Ohio he had the car in almost complete mechanical shape by July 1960, in an apparent admission that he was actually human and not some kind of superhero, he needed help with the body and didn't want to waste any time, so with that being said, they loaded up the car and moved it west to Southern California to the shop of the legendary Ludwig Luji Iski, known as one of the best independent car builders and manufacturers in the world. all time, as well as being a guy who could craft and shape metal like it was nobody's business.

He was put in charge of manufacturing the body. For the

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, there are two very fascinating parts to this: the first is that Lovi had built the body of the anteater.Dr. Nathan Tic's flying cadus, which was a thrust-powered land speed car, the first of its kind Theault had seen and also a shooting machine. for the same register as the dining room, the second is that this was a rather expensive option for the normally Thrifty arons. Not only was he hiring someone to do this job, but he was hiring someone who was world-renowned and surely not working for the least amount of money.

Through my research, the discovery that Lasowski built the body answered many other questions for me, specifically about the construction photos you are seeing in this video. I really didn't think a magazine would send a photographer to Ohio to cover the construction of this. car, so the build photos you are seeing here were all taken from lui's store. It actually appears in a couple of these photos, so understand that no one went to Ohio to photograph this car when the magazines first found it, it was right on his doorstep. In Southern California, one would imagine that hand forming an aluminum body that perfectly fits a huge car is not the fastest process, in fact it is very slow and this presented an immediate problem for Snider Lowski and any other person they could drag to the workshop.

For the better part of 5 weeks to complete the body, this put the team in a very precarious position because speed week was actually happening while they were banging panels in Los Angeles, when they finished the job all the guys piled into a truck and were crushed. For Bonville, believe it or not, the crew arrived on Friday night, it was too late to run races that day and the 1960 Bonville Speed ​​Week had only one day left and that was Saturday, normally a booked day for people to make their last record attempts before packing up and heading home, so with only one day left in speed week one might expect this to be some kind of madness. pressure cooker atmosphere, but it really wasn't over the course of the day they had in 1960 speed week granted a single day where most of the pictures you see of this car in the salt were taken, they managed three rips in the salt, they were all The Shakedown runs at slow speed and the fastest was at 200 mph.

It may have been a bit of a pain to be late to the party, but they had a car that could do 200M per hour, that was nowhere near the record or their goal, except for the guy who had never seen salt art between 0 and 2011 the day is pretty good, now on to the Salt Lake Tribune headline from August 28, 1960, New Record for Runner's Eyes at the Flats Mickey Challenges by Marian Dunn that line Bonville Salt Flats August 27 from the 1960 Bonville National The time trials stop here on Saturday and attention immediately turned to attempts to set a new world land speed record of over 3,941.196 mph.

Mickey Thompson, the big, likable racetrack owner from Elman, California, is the center of attention this week, but he got pushed around. strongly on Saturday by a newcomer from Akan Ohio and his main threat Donald Campbell of Great Britain had his Bluebird in Salt Lake City and the route for a total bet on Saturday morning Thompson ran for a Bonville national record of over 330 mph but a mile down the track he had transmission problems had to cancel his race without the new Mark. He has the Salt Flats booked through this week if he wants and if the car and tracker are fit he can go for the record as often as possible over the next seven. days, but there were signs on Saturday that he might wait until the next few weeks for his big attempt, even as Thompson left the salt flats in frustration on Saturday morning, art arons of akan took his green monster out onto the track, hurriedly assembled it and made two races this was the first real opportunity Arons had to test his car powered by an Allison aircraft engine of the same type used by the late AOL Graham and he also had problems: he reached a top speed of 191 mph and avoided a slide on the track . prevented him from accelerating, however, later in the evening Arons ran again and clocked 223 mph in the measured mile, although he reached a top speed of 250, so the big push is underway and so far the record has shown that an elusive Mark Graham died in the first.

On the day of the month their Salt Lake City crashed a record attempt, then Dr. Otit and Thompson had mechanical and track problems. End of quote, turning our attention back to the car, it's pretty clear why this thing was named the previous right to quote engine life in December 1960 quote metal formation and panel trim lives up to the high Usual Lov standard but the overall shape is strange with very low ground clearance and the snout shaped cockpit protruding from the full width curved metal covering the front wheels, love it or hate it, let's just move on , tilt our cap towards the nose and the canopy and move on with our story, so the week following the event, that is, the week of speed, Mickey Thompson had rented the salt Thompson, Donald Campbell, Nathan otit and artar fonso They will be out.

There, the arons filming for the record asked to join the party and got Thompson's approval due to his late arrival at Speedweek. Now this created perhaps the most impressive small group of terrain chasing speed record cars in history. Mickey Thompson had his four-engine Streamliner. The arons had the plane. Motor-powered monstrosity known as the Anteater Nathan Otit had his flying Cadas, the first jet-powered land speed vehicle, and Sir Donald Campbell of England had his latest Bluebird. This is a vehicle that used a turbine engine to drive the wheels for propulsion. It was not thrust propelled. It was a shaft turbine that actually drove all four wheels.

The four cars had their sights set on John Cobb and a speed record of 394 mph. Let's go to the desert news headline of September 6, 1960. Lively's hoods differ, but four runners have a common goal. History of the McDonald Bonville Salt Flats High Line A doctor, a feed merchant, a former journalist and an adventurer are trapped this week in the largest race ever staged on these historic Salt Flats for the world land speed record. The doctor is Nathan tic in Los Angeles. doctor his machine, the jet-powered flying cits that features a 550 mph designed cable the food distributor is an akan art arons from ohio who runs a food store with his father and two brothers aron's machine is the green Allison-powered monster built for a top speed of 425 mph the Pressman is California Mickey Thompson, current US land speed record holder with his Challenger.

He is powered by four Pontiac engines that develop almost 3,000 horsepower and has already covered his machine 373 M hours in a one-way race. Previously he was Pressman. For the Los Angeles Times, the adventurer is the Englishman Donald Campbell, only son of another famous racing driver, Sir Malcolm Campbell. Donald already holds the water speed record at 420 km/h and is only seeking the land speed record once with his $4.5 million Bluebird 2. Has Bonnaville ever come close to the magnitude of the current speed assault? This was in 1938, when two British racing drivers, Captain George Teist and John Cobb, matched their skills for record fame.

All cars are expected to race the rest of this week. Campbell's Bluebird is the latest to join the crowd heading to Salt Monday for two slow speed passes over the gleaming 12m circuit. Campbell's top speed was estimated at 150 mph and he eventually hopes to reach almost 500 mph, that's the design capacity of the runner two he ultimately designed. Other runners were active on Monday. AR arons reached 249 mph on its first pass, but immediately encountered problems with coolant and fuel. He had to reduce his top speed before reaching the mile measured in his only race. Dr. Osich on Monday hit 237,000 mph on his first pass.

At approximately 8:25 a.m. m., his second run was clocked at 239 mph, during which he encountered a strong crosswind that threw him to the other side of the track. Thompson was prevented from making a record attempt on Monday when he had to replace all four of his engines' clutches due to slipping, and he is also adding 500 pounds of weight in the form of a brass bar that is hooked to the chassis to compensate for a front end. light. The track is open to all four competitors for the remainder of the week next week, however, it will once again be the priority.

Campbell's record and he is expected to delay his record-breaking runs until he has exclusive rights, however, he plans to gain speed over the rest of the week with test runs to get a feel for the car. One of the most spectacular events on Monday was the motorcycle race. by Billy Marlin of Burbank California crashed between 60 and 180 mph near the measured mile, are you hurt? The journalists asked for a shake and Martin, as they rushed after the accident, no and almost in tears, Martin responded, but look at my Scat Cat on Tuesday morning. Be a repeat of Monday's mechanical breakdowns, Thompson, who was attempting a record, encountered extreme driving difficulties when he began running shortly before 9:00 a.m. m., he believed the problem was caused by a broken transmission line.

It was everywhere, Thompson said. I got up to about 300 mph and clearly went through the arm of the track, then when I turned it off it was just as uncontrollable as it was with the power. I was almost completely sideways and shot at about 250 mph. End of the quote, one by one, they fell the way otit was the first in which their fall had a multitude of problems, the most important thing was that the induction duct of the engine collapsed when they gave it more thrust, so Crest Fallen fell. He went home with his tail propelled by thrust between his legs and a lot of work to do. the future, the second to drop art arons in the anater after putting in his best run all week, had passed in the salt at 249 mph, a slipping clutch and low gear issues halted his progress, the damage was too much big to repair in the salt, so he packed up and returned to akan Ohio the Buffalo News September 8, 1960 Associated Press title art arons dropped out of spill tests two of four men who hoped to become the world's fastest car drivers suffered disappointment today in the salt beds of western Utah Dr.

Nathan Oich, a 50-year-old doctor from Los Angeles, and R arons, a 34-year-old mechanic from Ohio, said they will head home. Ostage made two runs on Wednesday, but never made it through the speed trap at Salt Flats and released his brake. He parachuted both times due to movement in the front wheels of his car. Mickey Thompson of the United States failed today with an engine problem, but on Wednesday he had problems with the clutch of his airplane-powered car and said it couldn't be fixed without a major overhaul. in June at the Dunkirk airport race track, New York, end of the date and then Mickey Thompson made history at the moment when Arons was loading his monster to go home, Thompson reached a speed of 46.6 mph in a direction to become the fastest man on wheels on the planet. cabag gotone 402 and setting his record of 394 mph, but here was Thompson beating him by a ton now, as we all know, the speed of 406 mph per hour was a peric victory, one of the engines or, as it is claimed, a shaft of transmission broke, leaving the car outside and out of the door.

Open to the British once again because Thompson couldn't make a comeback race to back up his 406. That said, running 406 miles per hour even without setting the record made Mickey Thompson an international hero and the hot rod god in the United States. United, but there was still one guy. on the salt who had something to say about this and his name was Donald Campbell San Bernardino County Sun September 10, 1960 headline Mickey Thompson drives 46.6 mph One Way Associated Press St line Bonville Salt Flats Mickey Thompson became the man yesterday World's Fastest Wheeler Blinking He tore through the Bonville Salt Flats in his Challenger One at 46.6 mph, but Roder, 31, from Elman, California, lost his chance to set an official automobile speed record due to a mechanical problem that stopped him in the second required race.

The line broke as he was about to shift into second gear at 210 mph and shifts into high gear at 315, so the 13-year-old record of 3,941 196 mph still stands, set by the late Sir John Cobb of England in 1947 with two runs here of 43.1. 3 and 388 mph to break this Thompson would have had to have improved that current average of 3941 n by at least 1% Thompson deeply disappointed after having the record almost at hisScope promised to try again after England's Donald Campbell in his 4.5 million Bluebird. The next week, early Friday morning, Thompson took off his beautiful wife Judy, mother of his two children, helping Pitman push the car to the starting line.

It was a good run from the start as Precision Instruments clocked Thompson at 46.6 mph in the measured mile. test at the end of the track as best he could until stopping the mechanics were swarming all over the car they had an hour before it was necessary to do the second run mechanically it seemed perfect Thompson walked around doing personal checks in a matter of minutes his Challenger powered by 4 450 Los horsepower engines and primarily a product manufactured by Mickey were in trouble and simply slid through the timing zone and now this brings us back to Donald Campbell, the man who came with the sprint car technologically most expensive terrestrial device ever created on Earth up to that time. history in his fastest race of the week, Campbell crashed the bluebird going around 360 mph, took a hard hit, the car was totaled, and the 1960 land speed racing season ended with a thud in the salt, back to the drawing board for the four of us.

The main players in this saga, but Arons had his eye on a different speed challenge and this one paid much better than anyone else on the salt in 1959. Bill France had made a standing offer of $10,000 to the first person who could give a lap at Daytona International Speedway. At over 180 mph, this would be over $100,000 today. I had always heard rumors that our Fon tried to perform this stun in a diner, but all that came were just those rumors, but with enough research I was able to find the proof and this is the funniest, strangest, and slightly craziest part of the whole thing. anteater story, the February 2, 1961, Orlando Sentinel headline seeks a $10,000 prize.

The well-known Akan Ohio dragster pictured above has officially filed it with Daytona International Speedway President Bill. France will try to win the $10,000 Plum Prize offered by France to the first driver to reach 180 mph on the 2.5m high banked track. The cigar-shaped machine designed by arons is powered by a powerful Allison engine and is designed to exceed 400 mph at Bonville. The Salt Flats arons will arrive in Daytona Beach tomorrow to begin testing, but the actual race will depend on wind conditions. The Allison engine makes 1,000 horsepower, so the arons tried to set the 180 mph pace at Daytona in this huge land speed car complete with its airplane shock absorbers and its transmission that wasn't going to shift electrically from first gear to for it to reach 300 mph, how was it so much better in the newspaper articles promoting it than in real life?

The acran Beacon Journal February 5, 1961 headline arons Tune-ups for $10,000 photo art akan arons made a couple of passes on the 2 1/2 mile high shore track at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday Preparation to attack the 176,832 and Wind resistance Your car is a 3,800 horsepower machine with an engine cooled by dry ice and a parachute that acts as a stabilizer. The truth is that the attempt was a disaster. Arons took off several times and ran at a top speed of 118 miles per hour before handing the wheel to Brian Naylor Naylor. a very good British racing driver who was there to compete in sports cars and eventually stock cars later in the month and Brian Daylor took the brunt of it after doing a 134 mph lap, the huge overheated V12 blowing up a hose of water and filled the cabin.

By drinking boiling water, the man suffered first and second degree burns all over his body, but mainly on his butt. Yes, sitting probably wasn't fun for Naylor for a while. Arons' fan club was one member down. This report of the day and the attempt tells us all we need to know the Orlando Sentinel February 5, 1961 Brian Naylor, a British Grand Prix driver who will be seen in stock cars later this month tested Ard's Bonville Speedster yesterday They earned the $10,000 awarded by Bill France for the first 180 mph lap on the track. Naylor ended up with first- and second-degree burns on his hand and butt.

What happened was that the car's 3,800-horsepower Allison engine overheated after two practice laps and a water hose exploded when Naylor He entered the pits, flooding the cabin with boiling water. Naylor's best time was 134 mph, well below the record of 176 posted by the late George Amch in an Apolis Indian car, final quote and that's why I think it's a little difficult to find much information about yesterday trying to break the record at Daytona, but with a car that was made as tidy as ever and not pressed for time Aron Snyder and the entire group of acolytes headed to Bonville with High Hopes in 1961, but once again they found themselves with a curve, the salt in 1961 was heavy rain and the weather had forced the officials to shorten the course for the competition and because of that it would be virtually impossible to run the car to its full potential.

That said, the boys were off to a pretty good start, they had sorted out the clutch and transmission issues from the previous year, so Arons started the week with a just shy run. of 290 mph, then went up to 304 and finally ran 313 mph. Now our Fons claims the car was never fast enough to shift into high gear, although the 33 mph speed was good enough to claim top speed of the week honors in speed week. and well the car couldn't reach the speeds arons wanted, over 400 mph, being the fastest car on the salt that year was certainly something to brag about and this car and its experience laid the foundation for what would become in one of the greatest races in land speed racing history, but let's take a look at the reports from 1961 to understand what the world thought of our fund's achievements.

The August 24, 1961 Tampa Tribune headline hits 289 mph. The art of driver arons from akan Ohio set the fastest time of the current Mee in Bonville today. National Speed ​​Trials arons drove his Allison V12 Streamliner aircraft engine to 289 mph during a practice run on the salt flats of western Utah final date August 25, 1961 The wilberry Times Pennsylvania leader headline art Aron's Pilots racer a 304 mph arte arons the akan speed rider from ohio pushed his 12-cylinder airplane engine a little harder yesterday and got 304 mph out of his streamlined race car time is the fastest of the week at the annual national speed trials of Bonville is not a record although according to the rules any record is the average of two runs in opposite directions through a mile of time arons made his in a one-way race final quote shareport newspaper headlines August 26, 1961 art arons is the fastest Bonville Trials to End Saturday The 1961 Bonville National Speed ​​Trials come to a close this afternoon with a car and riders getting their final shots at the art of the record book.

The arons of akan Ohio will try to improve on the meat's best time, a run of 313.2 mph achieved by arons yesterday while cruising through the assault in his Streamliner four-wheeled aircraft engine. 313 mph was a long way from the record at the time for going that fast. Arons has placed himself among a tiny group of humans who had once traveled so fast on the ground and lived to tell the tale. Today it's a Top Fuel dragster or a Nitro fun car. run, but in 1960 traveling at 300 mph on land was virtually a fantasy for the vast majority of the human population something else was happening in 1961 than art had kept a close eye on Walt the Green Monster the world's first dragster jet was the runway of racing with more demand attraction than the sport had ever seen and not only that the thing was fast having run more than 240 mph already in the quarter mile the future of the land speed business was not going to be pistons for our funds but rather push then, what happened to the Well, we have to fast forward to 1968 to get an answer to that question.

Yes, years after the incredible salt war between Arons and Craig Breedlove, two years after surviving a 600 mile per hour crash in November 1966, Raron said in a newspaper article that he still had the car stripped down and was going to put it back together and chase the wheel drive record of 409 mph set by the Summers brothers, as well as coming back for the overall record with another push-powered green monster, the Ogden Standard Examiner. Headline of November 3, 1968, Artar Fons plans to return to the Salt Flats next year. The United Press International Columbus Ohio line has completed this coast-to-coast drag racing program.

Akan's Art Arons spends much of his time at home these days, but his thoughts are more than 2,000 miles away, to the desolate Bonville Salt Flats in western Utah, where two men seek to break the world speed record on land for wheeled cars. If Mickey Thompson or Craig Breedo don't beat the record, I'll be back on the Flats next year with the anteater, King, 42, told United Press International this week, the aner was the first of three L-speed contenders from Art, although the Allison-powered car had a top speed of 313 mph, never realized the record I held. having problems with the clutch arons recalled his trip to the plains in 1961 never had a chance to put the car in high gear arons is convinced the homebrew creation can take him through the shiny salt reaching speeds approaching 450 mph, the record for wheeled cars is 409 mph set by Bobby Summers in his Golden Rod dismantled these many years the aneer will be brought back to life for the wheel driven assault the three time world record holder is actually planning a double cannon blitz on the record books that will also be left for dead Aim for the unlimited mark of 6.01 mph set by Breed Love in November 1965.

Ourons and Breed Love undertook a dueling airplane tour from 1964 to 1966, increasing the speed record to 413 at 600 m per hour. Arons drove his green monster to marks of 434, 536 and 576 mph, well-bred love and his Spirit of America 1 and two held the title by two-way burst of 468, 5113, 555 and 600 art was trying to regain the title when he miraculously escaped the death during a 600 mph accident on the flats suffering only abrasions and salt burns on November 17, 1966 well, the 17,500 horsepower car one car was damaged beyond repair another green monster had taken its smaller place, lighter and capable of supersonic speed under construction for a year the 5,200 pound monster is nearing completion All that's left is installing the parachute release mechanism and painting the body panels.

It's lovely. Raves arons. There is less frontal area. It's just a cleaner car. It has a lower silhouette, 11 inches lower than before. Less frontal area means less wind resistance and less drag. An important factor at this rate. speed, a test firing is imminent, which means Aron will securely chain the monster in his Pickle Road workshop and fire up the whining J79 power plant. "I'm shooting 650 mph even though I built this car to stay together at 750," he said. two wings are sheets of air Adorn the latest in a long line of green monsters dating back to 1954, when Arons competed in his first endurance race at the Arran Rubber Bowl.

The front wing was so successful on the last monster that it prevents the front end from becoming airborne. Wing Loc on the right rear of the car is designed to support the torque load on the right side. Aron said Aron spent a year building his ultimate Land Speed ​​Contender due to his return to the race track for the first time since 1963. Arons couldn't. He dedicated full time to the car during the spring, summer and early fall. His top recorded speed was 247 mph for the quarter mile in Oklahoma. Arons drove Cyclops, his first Jet and his second land speed car.

Aron set a record of 257 mph from a standstill in 1965. 5, when a special track was installed in the salt flats for the green monster, he intends to improve that record later this year at the Tire and Rubber Test Track Firestone in Fort Stockton, Texas. I think I can hit 300 mph in the quarter with this monster. He said with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. Art kept his drag strip schedule with his fleet of jets and of course would take to pulling tractors to become a dominant force and a huge fan favorite, but yesterday is the best case scenario.

I can say that he never saw the light of day again. The car occupies an interesting place for me.both in the history of land speed racing and in the legacy of the art. It was the first and last piston land speed car he employed, which is pretty cool, but. Even more, there's the part where a small group of four different, big-budget Oddball machines gave their best shot at the world land speed record at the same time on that fateful week in 1960. Lastly, I love the anator because it leaves us with one of those tantalizing unanswered Gearhead questions: What if salt were better?

What if the clutch didn't have problems? What if I could have traveled miles and miles? Could the 400 car have taken the record at that time? I said from the beginning that I'm an art fanatic, so I think so, how about you, a 300+ MH wild beast from one of the most fabulously fascinating mechanical mines of the 20th century, what could be cooler than that ? Thanks for watching. And Subscribe for more historical racing and automotive content.