Full steam ahead is 15mph in coal-fired Land Rover
Motoring enthusiast so chuffed with result of steam conversion that he drives it on daily commute
WITH its array of pulleys and levers and great clouds of belching steam, this contraption may at first appear to be one of the fantastical machines conjured up by the cartoonist W Heath Robinson.
But it is in fact a perfectly roadworthy Land Rover, with a petrol engine taken out and replaced by a steam engine.
So efficient was its conversion to the steam age that Frank
Rothwell, the car’s owner, uses it for his daily commute.
It has taken
Mr Rothwell
400 hours and
£24,000 to strip out the 50-year-old Land Rover’s petrol engine, repair the mildew encrusted bodywork and install the steam engine.
But then, as Mr Rothwell says of his project, it keeps him out of the pub. The custom-built motor works like a traditional steam train. A coal-fired boiler heats water to steam pressure in order to run the small engine. Driving for an hour takes about 100lb of coal. Mr Rothwell, 67, a steam enthusiast who once appeared on The Island with Bear Grylls, the TV survival show, said: “We all need a hobby and I like doing things that are difficult. I’d already built a 1910 steam wagon and got a real kick out of that, so just thought, ‘what else can I do?’ I wanted it to be something unique and recognisable, something no one else had ever done.” At full steam, the car is capable of 15mph – which may give Mr Rothwell a thrill, but is no doubt rather irritating for those stuck behind him in the lanes of Lancashire.
Still, it provides no end of fun for his three grandchildren. “They find it so exciting to have a ride on it and chug along,” said the businessman, who runs a series of car park lots and storage units. “I think it’s really good for children of this era to do things like lighting fires and using coal because they have little access to using things like that these days.”
Mr Rothwell, from Oldham, who bought the Land Rover from a manufacturing company, said: “They called the car Mildred because of all the mildew – that’s the state the car used to be in.”
“I decided not to tell them what I was doing, as I think if you have any ideas, it is best not to tell anyone. In the back of my mind, I knew it could be done.”
“It was a case of having the money and obviously the time to do it.”
He hopes to show off the vehicle at shows and rallies. In a happy coincidence, that car has been around the same number of years he has been with his wife, Judith.
“She thinks I’m crazy and hasn’t even had a ride on it yet.”