The idea of a jet powered Mini isn’t exactly original as thrust driven cars have been a “thing” since Walt Arfons introduced the concept of building a thrust powered, jet engined vehicle more than half a century. Now, actively running one on a road course? That’s not just an original idea, that’s the kind of forward thinking, deeply considered, evolutionary risk taking that we applaud here at BangShift eastern world HQ. After all, without pioneers like this guy, where does the future stand. Like the old saying goes, “pioneers are the guys who get their asses shot full of arrows” and in this case, it wasn’t arrows to be worried about but rather a significant impact with a wall and a car that was great at going forward and not so great at turning.
Jet cars have been very successful as exhibition acts on the drag strips of America for decades because there’s one central element to the whole process. No turning. When you add in the idea of actually navigating some sort of multi-turn course with a giant thruster pushing you forward and producing exponentially more force in that direction than your tires can produce grip, bad things are going to happen. Oh, that applies double if it is wet which the track appears to be in this video.
This machine was allowed on the course during an open track day at Snetterton in England and when the track’s insurance company hears about this one we’re not really sure how they’re going to react. If they are cool it may be as simple as that time your dad stared at you as a kid when you had done something so inexplicably stupid that you just knew never to do it again and he didn’t actually have to scream at you. If they are not cool, rates may really take a leap and we’re sure the entry fees will take one as well if that happens.
We’re not anti-creativity here. We’re just anti-dumb and this was very, very dumb.
From the country that gave us the CHMG LOL
This surprises…who?
Bloody ‘ell!
Hold my warm beer and watch this…
CHMG, where art thou?
That’s a fake BMW Mini and that was the best thing that could have happened to it!
German sacrilege that spits on the name of Alec Issigonis!
Was this done by the crew of Mythbusters? You could always tell they were special effects guys and not engineers (that\’s a hint). Didn\’t they EXPECT a massive amount of understeer with this setup? First run on a wet track, no less, and a fairly sharp curve? Don\’t they know what a skidpad is?