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''Spirit of America'' is the trademarked name used by Craig Breedlove for his land speed record-setting vehicles. ==The first Spirit of America== The ''Spirit of America'' was the first of the modern record breaking jet-propelled cars, built with a narrow streamlined fuselage, three wheel chassis, and most significantly, turbojet engine. Like most of the other competing vehicles the engine was ex-military, the first ''Spirit'' had a General Electric J47 engine from an F-86 Sabre and was tested at Bonneville Salt Flats in 1962, where difficult handling resulted in failure. Before trying again, a new stabilizer and steerable front wheel were added. Breedlove set his first record on September 5, 1963 at Bonneville, the first man to set an average speed of over during a land speed record.〔John Cobb had already exceeded this 400 mph speed in 1947, but had not sustained it as an average over both runs.〕 At the time of ''Spirit of America's'' construction the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) rules for a land speed record required a ''four'' wheel chassis. ''Spirits record was thus not recognised as an official record by the FIA. The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) did recognise it however, classing ''Spirit'' as a three-wheeler motorcycle. Although this controversy has been widely reported since as being due to the use of a jet engine, the FIA rules describing a qualifying car as being "driven through its wheels", the only issue raised seriously at the time was over the number of wheels, hence the FIM acceptance. For a period there were thus ''two'' simultaneous land speed records, the 1947 ''Railton Mobil Special'' record remaining as the FIA four-wheel Class A record, which from July 1964 went to Campbell's ''Bluebird''. Although Bluebird also used a "jet engine", it was a turboshaft that drove the wheels. Both FIA & FIM records were broken in October 1964 by Tom Green and further extended by Art Arfons. Breedlove returned to Bonneville with ''Spirit'' and pushed the record over , setting it at on October 15, a record that stood for almost two weeks. In setting the new record, at the end of his second run, the ''Spirit'' lost its parachute brakes, skidded for five miles (8 km), through a row of telephone poles and crashed into a brine pond at around . Drenched but uninjured, Breedlove climbed out of the cockpit and declared "And now for my next act I'm going to set myself on fire."〔('A Speed King Without A Kingdom' ) Sports Illustrated April 27, 1970. Retrieved 13 November 2014.〕 This feat earned a place in the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' for ''longest skid marks''. ''Spirit'' was recovered and taken to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago as an exhibit. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spirit of America (automobile)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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