What it’s like to operate and drive a 100-year-old steamer
The proper opening scene is missing from the movie The Aviator, about the life of Howard Hughes. The film should have begun with a wide establishing shot of the West Texas oil fields–flat, beige, monotonous, unending. And then, on the horizon, a dust devil should appear–getting bigger–and suddenly a whooping, hollering 19-year-old Howard Hughes comes straight at you doing 133 miles per hour in a Doble E20 steam-powered roadster.
That actually happened back in 1925–and in the very car featured here, no less. It may have been Hughes’ first experience with death-defying speed, but obviously it wasn’t his last. In fact, before he became a movie mogul, codeine addict and recluse–and long before he bought up Las Vegas–he had been an adrenaline junkie given to flying ultra-fast airplanes and setting all kinds of world speed records.
And in 1925, if young Hughes wanted to experience real speed, he chose the right car in which to do it. The 1925 Doble Steam Car could out-accelerate the mighty Model J Duesenberg of 1930, doing 0 to 75 mph in just 5 seconds, with its engine turning over at less than 1,000 rpm, and it could sustain speeds of 95 mph right from the factory.
The proper opening scene is missing from the movie The Aviator, about the life of Howard Hughes. The film should have begun with a wide establishing shot of the West Texas oil fields–flat, beige, monotonous, unending. And then, on the horizon, a dust devil should appear–getting bigger–and suddenly a whooping, hollering 19-year-old Howard Hughes comes straight at you doing 133 miles per hour in a Doble E20 steam-powered roadster.
That actually happened back in 1925–and in the very car featured here, no less. It may have been Hughes’ first experience with death-defying speed, but obviously it wasn’t his last. In fact, before he became a movie mogul, codeine addict and recluse–and long before he bought up Las Vegas–he had been an adrenaline junkie given to flying ultra-fast airplanes and setting all kinds of world speed records.
And in 1925, if young Hughes wanted to experience real speed, he chose the right car in which to do it. The 1925 Doble Steam Car could out-accelerate the mighty Model J Duesenberg of 1930, doing 0 to 75 mph in just 5 seconds, with its engine turning over at less than 1,000 rpm, and it could sustain speeds of 95 mph right from the factory.
Hughes’ 133 mph in his tweaked Doble (He had the boiler modified to produce 2,000 p.s.i. and the rearend ratio changed to 1:1 instead of 1.5:1) was not a steam car record, though. But it was certainly as fast as anyone had ever gone in a Doble. And it was a death-defying feat when you consider the tires, chassis and roads of the time.Fred Marriott had set a world land speed record of 127.66 mph way back in 1906 in a purpose-built Stanley Steamer. Then, the following year, he crashed while trying to improve on his time. It was estimated that he was traveling at 180 mph when his car became airborne and disintegrated, its boiler whistling off down the beach at Daytona. Amazingly, Marriot survived.
The main reason Hughes’ Doble was so fast is because it was equipped with an amazingly sophisticated steam engine that not only made 1,000-lbs.ft. of torque from a standing start, but could–and did–go over 600,000 miles without an overhaul. It’s true. Hughes’ Doble Steam Car did these things and then some. But more on that later.
Getting into the big Doble is typical for cars of the time. You open the small, square door, step up onto the running board and then ascend further to inject yourself into the car, tush first. Once inside, there is plenty of leg and headroom, but the vehicle’s body seems rather narrow for such a big machine.
The controls are nothing like those on a conventional car except for the handsome ebony steering wheel with its dazzling German silver spider. Even there, though, there are some differences–a smaller wheel mounted atop the steering wheel turns out to be the throttle. On the toe board are just two pedals: one, when depressed, gives you reverse, and the other is the brake. The clutch and gearshift are missing, made unnecessary by the car’s direct drive system. There are also a number of large, beautiful gauges on the dash, only a couple of which correspond to those in a conventional automobile.
Arnold Schmidt, steam car expert and primary restorer of Hughes’ Doble E20 for the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, California, took us on our test drive and explained the gauges and controls. Driving a Doble isn’t like driving a conventional car from the 1920s. There is really nothing to do but give it a little throttle, steer it, and hit the brakes when you need to slow down.
When a Doble is sitting still with a full head of steam ready to go (750 pounds of pressure at 500 degrees), there is no sound or vibration at all. A slight twist of the throttle and we ease away from a stop. There is only silence. It is as if we are being towed. But if you give the machine more throttle for a faster start, the car leaps forward and makes a faint swish-swish-swish sound momentarily. The car’s steam powerplant produces more than enough torque to break loose its tires from a standing start, and can take the car to nearly the century mark with ease.
Acceleration is like that of a modern car, only smoother. There are no gear changes because there is no transmission or clutch. A little adjustment of the throttle wheel and you are away–at what must have been an astounding speed in 1925.
The car is big and heavy, and the brakes consist of well-engineered mechanical, expanding drums in the rear only, so you do need to anticipate your stops–though that was par for the course in 1925. Steering is also much like other cars of the era–positive, but requiring some effort. But no vapor emanates from the vehicle, because an innovation developed by the car’s designer, Abner Doble, turns the steam from the engine into water, which is then reused by a condenser that looks like a conventional radiator.
The most disconcerting thing about driving a Doble is the throttle wheel on top of the steering wheel. It gets a bit confusing when you have to make a left turn and speed up at the same time by turning the throttle wheel to the right. So confusing, in fact, that Jay Leno had his Doble sedan converted to a conventional foot-feed throttle. Interestingly, the throttle response is not like that of a gasoline car. Rather than constantly controlling the rpm, you merely need to manipulate the throttle a little bit to get the car to the speed you want.
As the Doble rolls smoothly along at 30 to 40 mph, all you hear is a little wind and road noise–until the flash boiler needs to be replenished with steam, that is. Then the Sirocco blower kicks in and aspirates and burns a quart of gasoline in order to turn about two quarts of water into superheated steam; the flash boiler system produces 750 pounds of steam in only 90 seconds. The muffled roar of the blower sounds a bit like a distant jet running up its engines. Still, this all happens automatically and only barely intrudes into an otherwise quiet motoring experience.
The E20 handles well, and because of its weight and springing, bumps and road irregularities are seen but rarely felt. Cornering is flat, with no body lean, because the front-mounted boiler and rear-mounted steam engine are set very low in the chassis and the weight bias front to rear is negligible. A spin in a Doble is a delight, with none of the noisy distractions of a conventional car of the era.
To take off in a 1920s internal combustion car, you would need to set the spark, depress the clutch, pull the transmission into gear and then try to feather the clutch for a smooth start–and that isn’t easy if the car has a leather-lined cone clutch, because they are sort of all or nothing: in or out. Then, once you get rolling, you take the car up to about 15 mph and shift, double-clutching as you do because the gearboxes of the era had no synchromesh. Finally, at about 25 to 30 mph, you are ready to shift into high: The engine roar and vibration tell you so in no uncertain terms.
So, you ask, “If the Doble was so superior to other cars of its day, why wasn’t it a success?” Well, there were a couple of reasons: one was the initial cost, and the other was maintenance. A Doble would set you back at least $10,000, at a time when you could buy a Ford for $400 and, as a result, only 41 were built over 10 years. And even then, Abner Doble lost money on every car. In fact, it is estimated that a typical Doble may have cost in the neighborhood of $50,000 to build; Doble was a gifted engineer and an obsessive perfectionist, but not an adept businessman.
The involved maintenance necessary to keep the cars running was another hindrance to sales. You could be on the road almost instantly in a Doble when the car was prepared, but there was a lot of maintenance and effort required to get it back on the road if the car were shut down completely for storage. For one thing, steam engines require oil to be injected with the steam, and this has to be purged from the system about once a week. Yes, internal combustion cars of the Twenties required a lot of maintenance, too, but they didn’t need it as much or as often as steam-powered vehicles.
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