Rocket PoweR, InteRstellaR tRavel and eteRnal lIfe

Figure 14. Daniel Hungerford posed at the rear of the rocket car, 1934. A stop light had been located above the license plate.
DEMONSTRATIONS AND PROMOTIONS
For several years, the Hungerfords demonstrated their
rocket car at venues such as race tracks and fairgrounds
in New York and Pennsylvania; Plattsburgh, Syracuse
and Buffalo were among the places where the car
appeared. Three decades later Hungerford said they
“went on the highway and at airplane meets and auto
racing. We didn’t enter the races – just demonstrated
Rocket power and a new way of life.” 112 Cliff Towner
said Daniel “often drove his Rocket Car in local parades
on the Fourth of July and on Armistice Day, but never
under rocket power, of course.”
The Hungerfords tried unsuccessfully to arrange for
the display of their car at the Century of Progress exhibition
in Chicago in 1933 as well as at the New York
World’s Fair in 1939. They did succeed in getting publicity
nationally, although no payment, on January 15,
1934, on the daily Buck Rogers radio program. A
Hungerford letter explained the Elmira rocket experiment
and praised the radio program’s sponsoring product,
the Cocomalt drink (“just the ticket for weary
scientists after a day’s testing with their rocket car”). A
reply purportedly signed by the fictional Buck Rogers
told the Hungerfords that, “Because of your interest in
rocket motors I feel that you are doing humanity a real
service. Rocket airplanes, rocket automobiles, etc., will
undoubtedly be the next great important development
in transportation. They are on the way.” 113
Marvin asked Daniel Hungerford if he had ever tried
Cocomalt. “I drank it once.” When Marvin asked how
Hungerford had liked the drink, he replied “I threw
up.” 114 Hungerford in a letter alluded to efforts to find
other “adv. jobs for the Rocket” beyond the Cocomalt
Company (“no luck”). “We tried to get a job with the
Spaulding Bakeries in Binghamton, N.Y. No luck. Etc.
–etc.” 115
Schuyler Lathers, an acquaintance in the later 1930s,
remembered Daniel Hungerford describing the rocket
car operation. “. . . he would start with conventional
power and build up to about forty-five miles an hour.
Then he would light his burners in what he called rockets
and then he had enough thrust to disconnect his differential
and go to higher speeds. He usually did this at
fairs, with someone bellowing out with a loudspeaker
as he went around the track.”
Chapter Four: The Hungerford Rocket Car 25