**A Rare Driving Experience: Exploring a 1912 Aero Engine Car**

The car I'm sitting in is an extraordinary piece of history, with its twin chain drive and big single headlight up front. As you can see, it has a nice patina to it, which only adds to its charm. The exhaust system is a twin plug head, and the radiator overflow is another feature that highlights the car's attention to detail. We've also replaced the cables with new ones and put in fresh drive chains to ensure safety.

**A Modern Touch: Upgrading the Car**

We decided to give this classic car a modern twist by installing new horns. Why not? If you're going to be driving something as historic as this, it's only fair to make sure people know when to get out of its way. The horn is loud and clear, making it easy for others to see what's coming. This car is overbuilt, with a tremendous frame designed solely for safety.

**Pre-Flight Rituals**

Before taking the car for a spin, we need to do a few things to ensure everything is in working order. First, we pre-oil the valve train and around the engine. We use assembly lube and 50 weight oil to keep everything lubricated. This is crucial for a vehicle that's over a hundred years old.

**Starting the Engine**

The fun part of getting this car started! You have to do it just right – sometimes you need to hit one side, and then the other. The machine is remarkably smoke-free and runs pretty clean, thanks to its dry sump system. We make sure everything is tight, from the oil cap to the water gas cap.

**Taking it for a Spin**

It's time to get behind the wheel! We tickle the carburetor to feel the engine come alive. The overhead cam design with four valves per cylinder is impressive, and the sound of the valves opening and closing is music to our ears. As we hit the open road, this car comes alive – it loves the speed and freedom.

**Driving Experience**

Driving this 1912 Aero Engine Car is an exhilarating experience. It's like nothing you've ever felt before. The torque is incredible, pulling hard from any speed. You'll feel like you can pull down a building with ease! This is why modern cars don't make the same level of stump-pulling torque as these vintage engines do.

**The Heat**

As we drive, the engine heats up rapidly. It's not uncommon for the temperature to rise by 20 or 30 degrees in just a few minutes. But that's okay – it's worth it to experience this car's power and speed. And let's be honest, there's something special about driving on a cold day, feeling the chill of the air on your skin as you accelerate down the highway.

**Getting Out**

Finally, it's time to get out of the car! There's no gentle way to exit – you just stand on the seat and jump out. As we release the pressure in the tank, we're careful not to smoke anything when doing so. This is a special piece of history, and we want to treat it with respect.

**The End**

As I finish writing this article, I'm still warm from driving that historic car. It was an incredible experience, one that few people will ever get to have. Whether you're a classic car enthusiast or just someone who loves history, this Aero Engine Car is a must-see and drive. We'll see you next week!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endaddy foreign welcome to the episode of jay leno's garage something kind of special this week you know we love aero engine vehicles here you've seen the hispano suezer the 27 liter merlin we're working on uh this is one of my favorites 1917 fiat uh 21.7 liters almost 22 liters big six cylinder fiat aero engine now this car came from argentina built in argentina went to italy back in the early days there was a guy named eldridge he built a car called the metastopolis i believe it was called uh it's if you look it up on the web google it you'll see it was the one of the first aero engine monsters that had the same engine as this almost 22 liter fiat and at one point it was the fastest car in the world 146 miles an hour and it was the last car ever to set a land speed record on a public road and that car is currently in the fiat museum there was well there was a gentleman back in the day who really liked that car and wanted to build his version of it and he tracked down one of the engines and he built this car he later got in an accident uh the car was wrecked it was thought lost for many years then it was discovered by our friends at pursang now you've heard us talk about persang and argentina they're the ones that did that just fantastic alfa romeo uh well here take a look here it is there and they've done a number of bugattis and they just built beautiful beautiful replicas in the truest sense of the word replica in the sense that they copy the original car almost down to a t you know replica has gotten a bad name lately because people put a volkswagen engine in the back of some kind of kit car and they put a bugatti radiator on and they call it a replica well that's not a replica by replica i mean an exact copy of the original using the original sort of factory drawings and manufacturing processes and things of that nature anyway prasang found the engine rescued this car rebuilt it back in the 90s and i got them for a minute let's meet john bothwell john how you doing great good to see you so tell folks a little bit of the history of this car uh well this is a little bit different than our typical work uh as you said we do a lot of the recreations exact copies of cars this is in a separate category because this was really reviving a car that somebody else had created right uh adolfo scandrolio in argentina was was mesmerized by lord eldridge and the mephistopheles in england and so when he was able to buy an original fiat a12 bis engine uh he built his own version of that in argentina and that's going back to the 20s yeah in fact the engine in this car arrived uh in the port in buenos aires and el in uh scandrolio picked it up with a horse-drawn cart so it was a little bit different but you know variation of the same thing and when he built the car back in the day there was no transmission no brakes right that's right it was it was a low budget project yeah let's get a little bunch of that and i'm going to show you a picture of the car the car originally had a big hook hanging right up here a giant hook and the idea that was when the car went off the road which it often did because it had no brakes the hook would would grab the barbed wire because argentina with the ranching right so many of the roads had barbed wire that rather get decapitated the big hook would in theory in theory grab up the barbed wire before it decapitated you right uh needless to say the guy died in the car didn't right right 1949 and he died in the car in 49 and he cracked the block and we'll show you where it was patched back in the day in just a second but what other history the engine of course came out of one of the famous uh fiat world war one planes right right uh there were several planes that this engine was used and it's just it's an enormous engine it's mind-boggling to think that anything could have gone off the ground with this in it but yeah you know it served a purpose well in the race cars later here's a picture of one of the planes it was in but i think we've kept people in suspense long enough let's show them this motor unlike today when you open the hood of a car you just kind of go huh okay there's a battery in the big piece of plastic but back in the day you'd open the hood and people go ah and that was probably the epitome of that was the v16 cadillac you know when uh when cadillac started a styling department they were the first to do under the hood styling so when you when you opened the hood you'd see copper and chrome and brass and all the wires would be encased in these beautiful beautiful chrome runners and things this engine is kind of like that let's show you what we have here pretty advanced for the period don't forget this is 1912 to 1917. it is 22 liters or 21.7 four valves per cylinder overhead cam you've got a bevel drive to the overhead cam you have twin mags here's the accident we talked about that killed the kill the last owner the guys it was patched back in the day correct that's right as you can see and a pretty good patch it's still holding 60 years on the patch is still holding uh just giant toilet bowl carburetors this thing eats gas like nothing i've ever seen figure each cylinder is the equivalent of a 350 chevy right each piston is a 350 chevy okay they put that in your mind okay now you have six of them it's just but it's not as loud actually as the hisso but that's probably because of the four valves but pretty sophisticated for the day as i said overhead cam and bevel drive um what you have to do is lubricate these valves by hand before you start it as a precaution the car has a four-speed gearbox as you can see it is chain drive most of these gearboxes were based on the pre-war and when i say pre-war i mean one mercedes gearbox and that's what this is it was not built by fiat but it was built using a fiat engine and primarily fiat parts i believe that is the mercedes transmission that's correct that is in there um the area dampers here not really shock absorbers your chain here you've got mechanical brakes uh the car is probably good for 146 147 miles an hour and you have mechanical brakes on the rear wheels only do the math yeah not real good but you can use your hand brake if you want you can pull that back let me show you what we have here here's your fuel filler tank right here takes about 50 gallons it is a dry sump system so your oil goes right in here uh this is your fuel pump you just pump this until you pressurize the tank if you're driving along you feel the car start to spit a little bit reach over give it a couple more pumps bring it up to about a pound and a half two pounds and she's fine uh and it actually works quite well you know most cars had that sort of fuel delivery system just pressurized what most automobiles had back in the day was a pump on the engine that just kind of maintained pressure in the tank since this is an airplane it was not meant for automobile applications we do it by hand but this has just a nice feel to it it's like like winding the uh the gears of a nice uh you know pocket watch it just sort of clicks in and it just just has the right sort of feel there's your tachometer oil pressure right there water temperature horn and lights right there there's your twin mags this one here is your advanced and for ignition and that is a hand throttle it's fun it's fun to drive this thing just goes down the road uh unique styling um this looks like some sort of jet exhaust on here a lot of copper in the car as i said twin chain drive uh big single headlight up front as you can see the car has a nice patina to it there's your exhaust as you see it's a twin plug head uh this uh radiator overflow here put a set of modern horns on it just so since you can't stop it'd be nice to just let people know they should get out of the way so you blow those horns and that's that's pretty much it as you see massively overbuilt tremendous frame just for safety's sake we've replaced the cables here and we put new drive chains on you don't want to hang your hand down like this when you're driving and yeah you don't want to get stuck in that chain that'll that'll pretty much do you in but well that's the car i think it's time to go for a ride and there's a bit of a pre-flight ritual you have to do let's uh do that right now i'll open the hood first thing you want to do is uh pre-oil in and around the valve train george is coming in with our handy uh pre-island we you can use 50 weight oil what do we have here assembly lube it's assembly lube and oil and oil and we put a little bit in and around here up here as well you know you're dealing with iron that's a hundred years old but if you keep everything lubricated hopefully it'll run for another hundred and the fun part is seeing this engine start up you gotta do that just when you think you're done you've got to do the other side as well hit this side but the machine is remarkably smoke-free it runs pretty clean you probably don't need to do this every time you take it out but it's just a good precaution okay you want to climb inside let's see what we have to do okay let's our ignition this is our let's open our let's open our oil we have a dry sump system so we want to do that now i want to do is make sure my oil cap is tight my water gas cap is tight now this is my fuel pump as you can see i'm pumping up fuel pressure about one and a half pounds two pounds is good let's go over the gauges that's your mag left right mag and both tachometer water temperature lights and horn there you go right there now what i want to do is tickle the carburetor they sound plenty wet magnificent beast nothing like these aero engine cars there's no modern equivalent not even something like a hemi this is 22 liters each cylinder is bigger as big as a 327 chevy well all the valves are going up and down let's take it for a ride this thing is fantastic imagine driving this at 146 miles an hour with two wheel brakes on not particularly smooth roads you know it's such a beast but this engine was developed in 1912 and it's it's overhead cam it's four valves per cylinder okay it's not the best car for la traffic gotta find some open road more fuel pressure imagine driving this in 1917. holding 60 miles an hour and barely 800 800 rpm let's take her up on the freeway and see what she does believe me you want to be driving this on a cold day because the heat this thing throws is incredible this thing really likes the open road as you can see when you sit in traffic the plugs load up a bit so you got to get out of the open road and kind of put your foot in it you don't want to put your hands down by your side while you're driving and get them stuck in those chains it was freezing when i put this jacket on now boiling hot that's okay it's worth it you know a lot of folks especially those under 40 i've never driven a vehicle with this much torque i mean modern cars make a lot of horsepower but they don't make this stump pulling torque where you've got you know an 800 rpm it's just you can just feel like you'd pull a building down well there you go i hope you like this little trip down memory lane as i've said many times on this program there aren't many unique driving experiences and this is certainly one of them uh yeah let me turn off the oil turn off the fuel let me release the pressure there's no graceful way to get out of this thing you just sort of stand on the seat and jump out let's release the pressure in the tank you don't want to be smoking when you're doing this and that is a pretty much it it was freezing outside when we left after riding this thing i'm boiling hot even with this heavy coat on but that's okay because it's a piece of history and uh we'll see you next week you\n"