Renault Étoile Filante: An aerodynamically shaped car that runs more than 300 km/h

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An aerodynamically shaped car that runs more than 300 km/h and makes no noticeable noise. It almost sounds like a modern electric car. Do not worry, we won't write an article about modern Teslas. No, it's the Renault Étoile Filante from 1956 that this article is about, a speed record from Renault. This shooting star was the only attempt by Renault to build a gas turbine car as well as set a land speed record for such cars.

The idea came of Joseph Szydlowski, head of Turboméca, a manufacturer of turbine engines. He started with the small-scale production of powerful turbine engines, especially for the famous Alouette helicopters. In search of opportunities to elevate the benefits of technology, he quickly joined La Régie Renault, who was looking for new techniques for its engines. Renault CEO Pierre Lefaucheux also thought of beating some land speed records. On 5 September 1956 developer Jean Hébert drove the first meters at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, after two years of testing. A few minutes later, the Etoile Filante sets a new landspeed record with a peak of 308.85 km/h, a record that is still valid 62 years later!

These speed tests also helped to promote the sale of Renault's latest car in the United States, the Dauphine. The Étoile Filante later appeared on motor shows around the world. However, in the early 1960s, the end of the gas turbine era stopped making a second car and the speed record car was neglected. In the mid-1990s Renault decided to restore the car to make it run again. Renault has completely disassembled the car at the Billancourt factory in Paris, where the chassis was sprayed and the engine was repaired.

It is now conserved as part of Renault's Historical Cars Collection. Renault was so generous to take their showpiece to the Concours d'Elegance in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. As they built in an electric engine, besides the original turbine engine, it drove quietly over the sprint track. The contrast with the other cars on the track, pre-war cars with loud, conventional internal combustion engines, could not be bigger.

(Words and pictures Marius Hille Ris Lambers http://www.onestop.photo Source: Wikipedia)       

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