Rocket PoweR, InteRstellaR tRavel and eteRnal lIfe

was fired using a spark plug. Then, said Daniel
Hungerford, “you would start to go like hell.” 82
In 1964 he wrote,
It was October – 1929 – year of the great depression.
We secured strips of wood and sheets of cardboard
1/8” thick – The chassis was a 1921 chevrolette [sic]
– brought to us by our Ashman Mr. George Reeves
– from the late Mr. F. Brockway Blossom – local
Banker – all disassembled. My brother Floyd S. and
John Emery Botsford had reassembled the chassis
and were going to mount a buzz saw on it – to saw
wood. Instead we built the body and the Rocket
motor and installed them. 83
Marvin learned from Hungerford that construction of
the car was rapid. The framing for the body required ten
days. Completion of the whole in its initial guise took
only four weeks in “a small, red wooden shop located
at the rear of their neighbor’s adjoining property.” 84
Some 35 years after the fact Daniel Hungerford wrote
that his then next door neighbor was “dumfounded
[sic] yesterday to learn we built the Rocket Car body in
his garage. I have no photo of that.” 85 Marvin also noted
that the builders in those four weeks worked non-stop,
halting only to eat. 86
Covering for the car’s body was a “simple thick cardboard”
selected so that “in the event of emergency”
Hungerford could kick his way out, a process practiced
twice in the early days of rocket-propelled experimentation
with the machine. 87
The rocket engine first utilized a fire-clay lined, iron
cone. An undated newspaper clip described
Hungerford’s problem with the lining. He reportedly
had been “working for months on the perfection of a
rocket automobile. He thought he had the contraption
almost ready for a demonstration this week, when he
discovered a flaw.” The “explosion block” operated
“successfully” being fueled by a rotary pump. But,
[k]eeping the expansion chamber cool is the problem
Mr. Hungerford now faces. He procured a fire
clay, which a molder said would withstand great
heat, but after a trial the clay was reduced to a liquid
and the metal cover of the expansion chamber
badly burned.
“I hope someone knows of a clay that will withstand
heat of 4,000 or 6,000 degrees, Mr.
Hungerford said. “I do not want to put a water
jacket on the expansion chamber, but it may be
necessary.” 88
The three other cones at the rear of the car are dummy
engines. Hungerford told Marvin the extra tubes served
as a “snare and delusion” as did dummy smoke stacks
Figure 12. Daniel and Floyd held their rocket engine, the
device installed in the rocket car. The image dates about 1930.
on ocean liners. “Dummy stacks may have not done
anything practical in moving the ship, but they certainly
spelled prestige,” said Hungerford.
With the single rocket, the car broke seventy miles per
hour. Hungerford said, “It nearly became airborne. I
often wondered how fast I might have driven it had it
been a Locomobile or Pierce-Arrow chassis and with all
four pipes in action.” 89
The rocket car evolved during the years of
Hungerford ownership. George Mapes remembered a
replacement radiator was installed so that the lower
unit allowed the driver to have a better view to the
front. Mapes did not remember the maker of the
replacement radiator although he knew it was not a
Waco. 90 Marvin said the new engine radiator added
greater capacity than the original Chevrolet part.
Marvin also mentioned a carborundum lining for the
rocket engine successfully replacing the previous fragile
lining. Additional windows were added in the early
1930s. Larger rear wheels were added from a 1937
Chevrolet. 91
The continuing development of the Hungerford
rocket car also prompted components to be improved
by companies supplying the Hungerfords. While an initial
300 R.P.M. pump injected gasoline into the rocket
engine, later a high speed (ca. 1,750 R.P.M.) Gould
pump improved performance for the Hungerfords.
Hungerford wrote in 1964 that on a return visit with the
rocket car to the Gould Pump Company in Seneca Falls,
he had learned from the chief engineer that “since we
22 Daniel and Floyd Hungerford: Rocket Power, Interstellar Travel and Eternal Life, by Geofrey N. Stein