"Buba" ide suvise sporo?

[Lucky]

Mozhda vam nesto ovako mozhe pomoci:

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Ron Patrick is approaching the age of 50, a time when many men begin thinking about minutiae like pensions and second homes and third cars. But Patrick is far more interested in telling you why it is that he has stuck a big jet engine in the back of a prosaic silver Volkswagen.

He's standing out in a parking lot, waving his arms with wild enthusiasm, pointing at the car as if he were a 15-year-old who's just had his first ride in a Corvette, his eyes spinning in delight. This car consumes him, he loves the completely outrageous idea behind it, and for a moment, his infectious mood makes you think, gee, anybody could do this and it sounds like a great way to spend a few years, not to mention $250,000.

Patrick is a 48-year-old Stanford-trained (Ph.D.) engineer who owns ECM (Engine Control and Monitoring), a Sunnyvale firm that makes electronic instruments used by auto manufacturers to calibrate their engines for performance, fuel economy and emissions. He knows cars. He knows how they work. He's an animated man who has a seasoned sense of humor, a wry view of the world, mixed with a dash of the absurd and an absolute passion for things like, well, jet-powered cars.

Patrick has had a lot of cars and he said that about five or six years ago he was getting pretty bored with the state of the hot-rodding car hobby in America.

"I'd been building cars for a long time," he said. "Drag cars, American muscle cars. The last one was a big hemi engine in a 1965 Dodge Coronet. I wanted something of the extreme of the extreme of the extreme. I was looking to buy a (ex-Soviet) MiG 15 or MiG 17 jet engine. I finally decided on the T58."

The Navy surplus General Electric T58-8F is that menacing, giant cigar-like item sticking out of the VW's hatchback. When he fires it up, standing next to it is a bit like standing next to one of the engines of a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320 while the thing is about to back off from the gate. This, however, is a Volkswagen bug with a 1,450-horsepower jet engine sticking out the back, idling away at 13,000 RPM.

It's a perfectly street-legal VW, too, with current California registration and smog-approved gas-burning front engine made by Volkswagen. It's just this humongous big thing projecting 23 inches rearward from the hatchback that makes it different from any other bug. The "thing" is what Patrick describes as "essentially a baby Lear jet engine, a couple steps down from the engine on an F4 Phantom."

"The presidential chopper has two of these engines," Patrick said the other day at his office in Sunnyvale. "It's the one that lands at the White House and you see the president come out and the little dog running around."

So let's dispense, right here, on the why of this project -- why did he spend a quarter of a million dollars to build a car whose major attribute (the jet engine) cannot be legally used on a public highway?

"The purpose of this car is to have fun and be stupid," he says with a laugh. "This is entertainment. It's a toy, a toy for silly boys."

And where do you go if you want to build a jet-powered car? You go to the iconic group that has been doing this for decades, the Arfons family in Akron, Ohio, creators of the Green Monster and other closed-course, record-setting jet-powered cars. Patrick flew out to confer with the Arfonses.

"He had this crazy idea -- he wanted to put a jet engine in a Volkswagen," said Tim Arfons, who runs the Akron Turbine Group and is a man who has seen his share of outr

[Spu [RuR]]

uu raketa u dvorishtu =) mozhesh svima poshteno da pretish onda ;>

[dovlagsi]

uuu, tjuning stajling!

A must-have za auspuh.. :)

[stalja]

Ok, lik je dao preko pola miliona dolara na vw bubu sa dzet motorom, i sa njime moz' da ide max 250-270km/h...

Gde je tu poenta?

[dovlagsi]

^ pa, poenta je auspuh. Vidi kako je do jaja! :)

[togFU]

i koliko moze da predje dok ne presushi? 500 metara?

[suba]

i koliko moze da predje dok ne presushi?  500 metara?

←

neshto vishe

[Lucky]

ah da, zaboravih da napomenem, on je to ugradio da bi vozio decu u skolu i isao u bakalnicu po luk i krompir.

[stalja]

Zbog toga, oprashta mu se auto od pola miliona dolara :)

Edited May 11, 2006 by stalja

[CRNAC_U_TUNELU_]

Hmm treba da stavi crvenu tkianinu na kraju auspuha. HAHAHA :D

[Doca]

Meni zhao bube :(

[svilnik]

Kako ide u rikverc???? :D

[dovlagsi]

E, a jeste izvalili shto dole levo ima "konektor" za plin?? Ovo mora da je neki Srbin pravio... :)

[dovlagsi]

...a evo je i u akciji :)

[Spu [RuR]]

aaa sad sam skontao da je to NOVA buba

sad mi je sranje

[_Gotti_]

ahahahahahahahahahahah

OMG ..sta je bre ovo ?!??!?!

[stalja]

Buba sa raketnim pogonom.