History

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Spirit of America (automobile) page on 10 October 2023, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Spirit of America is the trademarked name used by Craig Breedlove for his land speed record-setting vehicles.

First Spirit of America

Spirit of America was the first of the modern record breaking jet-propelled cars, built with a narrow streamlined fuselage, three-wheel chassis, and, most significantly, turbojet engine. Like most of the other competing vehicles, the engine was ex-military. The first Spirit had a General Electric J47 engine from an F-86 and was tested at Bonneville Salt Flats in 1962, where difficult handling resulted in failure. Breedlove set his first record on September 5, 1963 at Bonneville, the first man to set an average speed of over 400 mph (640 km/h) during a land speed record attempt. At the time of Spirit of America's construction the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) rules for a land speed record required four wheels. Spirit's record was thus not recognised by the FIA.

Spirit of America – Sonic 1

A new Spirit was built over 1964–1965 to attempt to beat Arfons, dubbed Spirit of America – Sonic I a four-wheel design with a much higher rated GE J79 engine originally from an F-4 Phantom II, the same type as that used by Arfons' Green Monster. Another tit-for-tat with Arfons ended with Breedlove setting the record at 600.601 mph (966.574 km/h) on November 15, 1965, a record that stood until 1970.

Spirit of America – Formula Shell LSRV

After a lengthy break from world records Breedlove began work on a new Spirit in 1992, eventually named the Spirit of America Formula Shell LSRV. The vehicle is 44 ft 10 in long, 8 ft 4 in wide, and 5 ft 10 in high (13.67 m by 2.54 m by 1.78 m) and weighs 9,000 lb (4 t), construction is on a steel tube frame with an aluminium skin body. The engine is the same as in the second Spirit, a GE J79, but it is modified to burn unleaded gasoline and generates a maximum thrust of 22,650 lbf (100.8 kN).

The first run of the vehicle on October 28, 1996 in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada ended in a crash at around 675 mph (1,086 km/h). Returning in 1997 the vehicle badly damaged the engine on an early run. The British ThrustSSC twin-Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan-engined LSR car upped the record to 763 mph (1,228 km/h) on 15 October 1997, and became the first car to officially break the sound barrier. The re-engined Spirit could do no better than 676 mph (1088 km/h).

Breedlove sold the Spirit of America Formula Shell LSRV to Steve Fossett, holder of many sailing, ballooning and other aviation records, and the car was undergoing rebuilding in hopes of some preliminary shakedown runs in late September 2007 at Bonneville. However, Steve Fossett disappeared in early September 2007 while scouting for alternative land speed record venues in Nevada; his body and aircraft were later located in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

The Spirit of America Sonic Arrow, as it was rechristened by Fossett, was rolled out on the Black Rock Desert for a photo opportunity on October 15, 2007. The effort to run the car continued.

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