Time travel: Part I

Josh Welton behind the wheel of the Beast of Turin.

There is a place in England where time travel exists. From standing at the cutting edge of future technology one can move just a few miles, more quickly than the speed of sound, back over 100 years to a very similar place in a much different time.

A train ride from where we were staying in Oxford, U.K., to Bristol took about an hour. My friend Stefan Marjoram works for the Bloodhound SSC team; he creates the videos, the art, and does the photography for the project. He was kind enough to not only give Darla and me a tour of Bloodhound’s command center, but also to set up a visit with Duncan Pittaway, the man who restored and now pilots the famed pre-war monster Fiat nicknamed the “Beast of Turin.” Stefan has done much of the same type of creative work for Duncan, documenting the monumental restoration.

At first glance, the Fiat S76 and Bloodhound SSC (supersonic car) have very little in common. One was built in the early 1900s; fabrication on the other started in 2011. One was hand-built with old-world craftsmanship; the other makes use of 3-D-printed titanium and carbon-fiber parts. One has a 4-cylinder internal combustion engine making 300 HP; the other has a rocket/jet hybrid propulsion system making 135,000 hp. One sits in a shed that, for all intents and purposes, is straight out of the early 20th century; the other resides in an industrial park. One looks forward to screaming through the English countryside; the other is preparing to go Mach 1.4 across an African desert.

In reality, the two cars share the same spirit: the desire to go faster than any before them. As Henry Ford famously said, “Auto racing began 5 minutes after the second car was built.”

In 1909, Benz built a 200-HP car nicknamed the “Blitzen-Benz.” It set the official land-speed record at 126 mph, and eventually hit over 140 MPH AT Daytona Beach.

Fiat wanted to respond, and thus created the S76. Their 28-liter, 4-cylinder engine was actually pretty advanced for the time, and it is still the largest car-specific engine ever built. It made an earth-shaking 300 HP, and only two S76s were made. While some reports say it eventually hit over 170 MPH(!) in New York, it officially hit almost 140 MPH in 1911. Weather and road conditions, however, prevented it from making the required second run.

Former RAF pilot Andy Green and adventurer/entrepreneur/landspeed record holder Richard Noble came up with the Bloodhound concept while listening to a speech by the U.K.’s then Minister of Science Lord Drayson. With no aircraft like the Concorde, the Vulcan, or Lightning to drool over, Britain has experienced a steep decline in students enrolling to become engineers. The kids have had nothing to excite them, no jet fighter or supersonic cruiser to post on their ceiling to stare at while dreaming. The country has an aging infrastructure and a need and desire to move towards "green" design, but the shortage of engineers is limiting their ability to build the future.

The Bloodhound SSC’s goal is not just to surpass 1,000 MPH, but to inspire the next generation of engineers. It’s an open-source project, and the entire country is involved. It’s privately funded, but the government lends a hand when and where it can. The U.K. is, rightly so, very proud of the Bloodhound project.

The Fiat S76’s nickname is a nod to its size, power, and origin. The Beast of Turin was shipped around the world in search of suitable tracks to test it at its limits, but as the world went to war, racing took a back seat. While Fiat dismantled the first vehicle so its technology wouldn’t be swiped, the privately owned chassis wound up in Australia, lost to time and circumstances just the same.

A hundred years later, Duncan Pittaway has spent a good part of two decades piecing together and fabricating the puzzle of the Beast. He found chassis No. 1 and then acquired the engine from the No. 2. With the aid of old blueprints and photos, Duncan and his mechanics have re-created the S76. Within the last two years, he’s resurrected the fire-breathing monster, to the point where he was able to drive it at the famed Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Josh Welton and the Bloodhound.

As fate would have it, the Bloodhound SSC sits mere miles from Duncan’s shop.

All photos courtesy of Josh Welton, Brown Dog Welding. The photos in this slideshow are predominately of the Beast of Turin. Part II will feature photos of the Bloodhound.

Slide Show | 17 Images