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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.11.14 19:01l 51 Lines 2354 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 40164_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Nov 16
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Sent: 141116/1655Z 40164@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.61
Nov 16, 1901:
Riker Torpedo Racer sets the world speed record for electric cars
On November 16, 1901, a spare, low-slung car called the "Torpedo
Racer"_basically a square platform on bicycle wheels_breaks the
world speed record for electric cars in Coney Island, New York.
The car's builder and pilot, an engineer named Andrew Riker,
managed to coax his machine one mile down the straight dirt track
in just 63 seconds (that's about 57 mph; today, by contrast, the
world speed record for an electric vehicle is about 245 mph). The
battery-powered Torpedo Racer held onto its record for ten years.
Riker's Torpedo Racer was the fastest, but not the first, working
electric car in the U.S. The first one was built in 1891 by an
Iowan named William Morrison. It had a 4-horsepower motor, a
24-cell battery that weighed almost 800 pounds (the whole car
weighed about twice that), and could go about 14 miles per hour
at top speed. The Morrison car was an amazing innovation, but not
many people were ready to buy one. A few years later, however,
the Pope Manufacturing Company of Connecticut sold quite a few of
its Columbia Electric Phaetons, which were heavier than
Morrison's machines but could still travel at a whopping 15 miles
per hour.
Unlike Morrison and the engineers at the Pope Company, Riker
concentrated on building electric racecars. In September 1896,
one of his machines won the country's first-ever automobile race,
five laps around a one-mile dirt horse-racing track in Cranston,
Rhode Island. (The Riker electric finished the race in a little
more than 15 minutes.) Riker cars could maintain reasonably fast
speeds over long distances, too: In April 1900, a relative of the
Torpedo Racer won a 50-mile cross-country race on Long Island. It
was the only battery-powered car in the field of racers.
Likewise, Riker's was the only electric car in the 1901
Long-Island-Automobile-Club-sponsored race at Coney Island.
Against eight gas-powered cars and six steam-powered ones, all
stripped down to frames and wheels to eliminate unnecessary
weight (Riker's navigator didn't even have a seat; he just sat on
the back of the car, clinging to its side as it whisked down the
track), the Torpedo Racer finished the race in third place.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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