The rocket man and the silver-screen queen: Mary Pickford tries the Haugdahl Special

• 

Passing this picture round the PreWarCar.com headquarters, it seemed everybody knew what this car was, or thought they did: the famous Opel rocket car. It’s not that, in fact, but it is a rocket-powered racer—one built in the late 1920s by Norwegian Sigurd Olsen Haugdahl, who’d come to the USA in 1910. To stick to the Friday Lady theme, he’s showing it here to "Queen of the Movies" Mary Pickford, actress, screenwriter, producer and one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, who married Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Between them, they owned their fair share of motoring marvels.

Sigurd ‘Sig’ Haugdahl, also known as "The Flying Norwegian," certainly was an interesting figure, too. He ran a garage in Minnesota and was an eager racer, as well as a fireworks expert. After racing a Mercer Raceabout, he built his own rather spectacular-looking Wisconsin Special in 1912, named thus after its 13.7-litre, 250 bhp Wisconsin six-cylinder aero engine, which was connected directly to the rear axle and fitted into a customised Fiat chassis. He supposedly managed to fire it up to 180 mph at Daytona Beach in 1922, although it was never an official record as it wasn’t officially timed by the AAA… The car is a survivor, by the way, and is back in Norway now.

Haugdahl must have been a good driver though, winning the IMCA (International Motor Contest Association) National Championship no fewer than six times, from 1927 to 1932, as well as many midget races later on. His eccentric rocket-powered car, about which we couldn’t find much information, made its début on June 17th, 1932, at the Bo Sterns Speedway, Wichita, Kansas. It made an "exhibition run" there and it's likely that this photograph was taken on the day. The car was scheduled to make a second exhibition run at the same track on June 19th, but due to rain the performance was postponed to August 7th. When the car finally made it to the track, the rockets burned out on the second lap only, destroying the car. Sig retired from racing in 1934 but lived on to the age of 79 in 1970.

Words: Jeroen Booij
Picture: Florida State Library & Archives
 

Aggiunga un commento...