Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Speed Records 1899

Gianni Marin, The Motor Car, London House and Maxwell 1963
La Jamais Contente, built by Camile Jenatzy, was a 100 hp electric car built to break the existing automotive speed record of 39.25 mph, set in December 1898. A number of timed runs were made over a four month period finally resulting in the record of  65.79 mph on Apr29 1899. The streamlined body was far ahead of its time. No one in the photo seems overjoyed at the accomplishment. For comparison, in 1893 the NYC train pulled by locomotive #999 was reputed to have have set the absolute human speed record at 122.5 mph

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