Steam Car Should Get Another Look, Says Retired Engineer Who Has One

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - It's the future, not the past, that makes Jim Crank look lovingly at his restored 1925 Doble, a big, powerful car that could easily steal the scene in a movie about Prohibition gangsters or silent-screen stars.

One of only 20 ever made, the car is run by a "secret" powerplant that Crank thinks could turn around the nation's hunt for a cheap, pollution-free way to get around.

Pop open the hood and take a look: The engine looks like a big kitchen pot. This is a steam-driven car, running on just about anything - including kitchen grease - and practically pollution-free.

As far as Crank is concerned, the steam engine is America's best-kept automotive secret in a day when much is being made of the electric car's potential.

"It also has fast acceleration, good speed and good range, especially when compared to the electric car," said Crank, a 62-year-old retired engineer. "The electric is a joke for anything except short run, flat land city shopping."

Doble, Stanley, White and other steam cars were common when the gasoline car was the plaything of rich men and the electric was popular with little old ladies, Crank said.

Steam moved trains, ships and scores of other things, including elevators and printing presses. The steam car didn't fail - but it was overtaken by events, he said.

"It was superseded by a more efficient and cheaper power source, the developed internal-combustion engine," Crank said.

Crank IS the Doble Steam Motors Corporation, a San Francisco firm that went out of business in 1933. A few years back, Crank came up with a few bucks and did the paperwork needed to gain the title from the state.

He has coupled the name of that company with the physical remnants of another: the steam efforts of Bill Lear, the developer of the Lear Jet, who got into steam research in the 1970s. Lear spent a lot of his own and federal money before giving up on a steam-powered bus.

Crank got Lear's equipment for the ridiculous price of $500, providing he could haul it away.

"I got loads of stuff, including seven turbines and some boilers and tons of hardware," he said.

Crank used an experimental boiler from the Lear gear to build a steam-powered race car that went on to beat the steam car land speed record of a little over 127 mph, set in 1906 by a Stanley steam car. The car designed by Crank hit 145.6 mph in 1985.

The 1906 speed record shows that steam was the fastest fuel around for a while. The winner of the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911 won with a 74 mph average.

All this adds up to making Crank "The Last Lion of Steam," according to Boston Globe automotive writer John White.

Crank "not only knows where steam automotive technology has gone, he knows where it should be going," White wrote.

It's time to give steam another chance, Crank says. Automotive giants are searching for alternatives. Toyota developed a gas-electric hybrid called the Prius which is powered by electricity at slow speeds and switches to gasoline at higher speeds.

Buses and trucks might be a good bet for steam, said Crank, noting that steam trucks were operating in England as late as the 1950s.

As for longevity, he said Stan Lucas of Long Beach, who owns the Doble along with Crank, has another steam car with 600,000 miles on it.