Tethered racing cars

Fun & Games

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.

View more articles by Gareth Branwyn

@garethb2

March 20th, 2008 2

On Dinosaurs + Robots, Mister Jalopy wrote about this sweet 1940s gas-powered model racer:

Starting in the 1920’s, well before radio control cars, hobbyists built and raced nitro burning model cars tethered to a center point like an old Cox airplane. Eventually, there was a commercial market of such size that small manufacturers like Duro-Matic in Los Angeles started producing small numbers for sale. Tether racing is still going strong with world records in the 200+ mph range.

Duro-Matic Streamliner Gas Engine Tether Car

2 thoughts on “Tethered racing cars”

carpetbomberz.com says:

March 20th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

There’s a story about an artist named Francis Picabia back in the early 20th Century. Cars were a rather recent invention and constantly improving at a rapid pace. He idolized the power of cars. He loved cars so much, but he didn’t always have a place to drive them. So he had a car lifted up to the roof of a villa he owned in Italy. He attached a long wooden beam to the driver side and a giant pivot was attached to the middle of the roof. The arm was attached to the pivot post to keep the car from going off the roof. He would drive that car ’round and ’round looking out at the countryside. That’s what this reminds me of.