Which was the result of installing the largest possible engine from a blimp 21.7 liters, into a race car, the 1908 SB4.
It broke the record set by the Blitzen Benz 10 years earlier, in 1914, and was the last world land speed record set on a public road.... 145 .89 mph, which Sir Malcolm Campbell barely beat by less than 1/2 a mph in the Sunbeam.
Sir Ernest Eldridge fitted the first example of an A-12 to Mephistopheles in 1922 with the aim of taking some silverware at Brooklands. The chassis wasn’t long enough to get the monster engine in, so Eldridge and his mechanics extended it by 20 inches – according to legend, with sections from a London bus.
He fitted four carburettors and four magnetos, which helped liberate 320bhp at 1,800rpm, with just 4 to 1 compression.
That feeds into a 57-plate clutch pack attached to a 176lb flywheel and then to a four-speed transmission (no reverse) and a centre differential with a thick Reynolds chain drive to each wheel.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motoringvideo/8566579/Goodwood-2011-the-mighty-Mephistopheles-returns.html
Because this car was so impressive, a rich man in Argentina decided to build one just like it when he discovered that Fiat did not sell them this way, and the Botafogo Special was made http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2012/05/jay-leno-brought-his-awe-inspiring-1917.html
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