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1925 Doble E-20 Steam Car - Jay Leno's Garage

Jay Leno's Garage2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2015–2024
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demo · general · evergreen · 2015–2024 on HN

Jay Leno tours and drives a 1925 Doble E-20 steam car, once owned by Howard Hughes, covering how it starts up and runs. It includes a cutaway view of the engine.

Cited in steam car threads as a well-produced view of how a Doble works and how it solved startup in 1925.

6 comments from Hacker News

@snaily2024-05 · in “Steam's Last Stand”

Jay Leno has a Doble car (mentioned in the article as a 1920s attempt at a "user-friendly" steam car revival). The video has great production and really shows the starting and driving processes: ▶ this video

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@FrustratedMonky2024-03 · in “Howard Hughes modified a 1925 Doble steam car to reach 133 MPH (2022)”

anybody have diagrams of this engine? Picture link This video opens the hood, and shows cross sections of engine. And is technical focus. link This Jay Leno video is actually good. Has cutaway of the engine to show the moving parts. ▶ this video

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@somat2024-06 · in “Steam's Last Stand”

Here is how they solved it in 1925. I feel with our many modern advancements we could do much better. ▶ this video That said, as neat as steam cars are, there is a reason internal combustion engines won. Probably because they are smaller, lighter and most importantly cheaper.

@somat2024-05 · in “Steam's Last Stand”

The stanly was a much earlier tech, perhaps the best car of it's generation. But compare that to the doble, perhaps the high point of steam car technology before that personal motive power route was abandoned. ▶ this video Now admittedly the doble was a high end luxury item, But you can see how it could be possible to have a every mans steam car.

@archgoon2018-01 · in “Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank”

Thanks; I had never heard of the Doble Steam cars until now. I found this video of Jay Leno driving one. ▶ this video