Renault Etoile Filante (shooting star), 1956. An experimental gas turbine vehicle that broke the land speed record for gas turbine-powered cars when it reached an average speed of 191.0 mph (307.4 km/h) on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The car's Turbomeca “Turmo” turbine engine produced 270 hp at 28,000 rpm. The record was used to promote Renault's Dauphine for the US market
"When I was 9 years old I built a turbine in a mountain stream on my father’s land and connected it up with bolts to all sorts of machinery. I told my uncle, ‘Some day I’m going to America and I will run a big wheel at Niagara Falls.’ I had read about Niagara Falls and it fascinated me. My uncle didn’t take it seriously. ‘You’ll never see Niagara Falls,’ he told me.
"But I did come to America, and I did put a big wheel in Niagara Falls.“
— Nikola Tesla
“Tesla, 76, Reports His Talents At Peak.” New York Times, July 10, 1932.
Perrelet's passion for poker returns with the new “Turbine Poker Royal Flush”
Multiple iterations of Turbine Poker have always met with immediate success. For 2024, Perrelet is offering a new edition dedicated to green table enthusiasts: the “Turbine Poker Royal Flush”, in a limited series of 99. And it once again demonstrates the never-ending imagination and the courage to dare with unconventional style of the Manufacture founded in 1777, capable of creating…
Ariel Hipercar Prototype, 2022. Ariel’s first fully homologated car will go one sale in early 2024. It’s also the company’s first closed coupé and uses a bonded aluminium tub with detachable subframes and a carbon fibre body featuring butterfly doors. The real party trick is an electric drivetrain with electric motors for each wheel producing 285hp (220kw) making a total 1140hp (880kw). Performance is suitably electric with 0-60 mph (97 km/h) in 2.09 seconds, and the ability to accelerate between 60-120 mph (97-193 km/h) in 3.51 seconds. There’s also a Cosworth micro-turbine range extender that produces an additional 47hp and improves on the 800-volt, 62 kWh battery’s WLTP range of 150 miles (241 km). Ariel says the Hipercar will be homologated in Europe and Australia, but not the US. No prices yet but it will be “less than £1 million ($840k)”