The Hughes Super-Steamer

The Phelan version of Hughes' experience with steam-powered automobiles when he owned two of them in 1926 quotes Dietrich:

HOWARD preferred his Doble over his Stanley . . . but he was critical of both because they took too much time to get up steam, and they had relatively short non-stop cruising ranges. They consumed water at what Howard considered an inordinate rate, and had to stop about every 60 or 70 miles for a refill.

"I can get better performance than that," he told me, and set out methodically to build the world's best steamer. He and I went to California Institute of Technology and conferred with Dr. Robert Millikan,* its president and the 1923 Nobel Prizewinner in physics. Hughes told Dr. Millikan that he wanted to employ two of his brightest engineering graduates, men with creative imagination. Dr. Millikan recommended two young men, named Burns and Lewis.

"I want a steamer that will get under way in 20 seconds, starting from a cold stop," he stipulated. "With the present steamer, it takes from two to five minutes to get up steam. If I had a fire, I wouldn't be able to get them out of the garage. Second, I want a steamer that will run from Los Angeles to San Francisco on one filling of water."

He installed the pair in rented quarters on Romaine Street out near the present Sunset Strip ... I asked Hughes what he thought he could do with such a high-priced handmade car if it proved feasible . . . "Well," he said defensively, "it's really just a sort of hobby for me. If we put it into production, we couldn't sell more than 25 to 50 cars a year, and we'll probably have to charge $25,000 or $30,000 each. I think some of my sportsmen friends would buy them at that price . . ."

Burns and Lewis were waiting for us at their workshop, eager to show off their masterpiece . . . The engineers assured him that it was fast starting and could run at least 400 miles on a single filling of water. "How did you manage that?" Hughes asked. The engineers proudly explained . . . "You mean the entire body contains radiators, including the doors?" Hughes asked . . . "Well tell me, then, if I'm driving along and somebody in another car broadsides me, what happens?" There was an embarrassing silence. "I'd get scalded to death, right?" Hughes said . . . Without ever firing up his $550,000 super-steamer ... he ordered it junked. "Dismantle it, get some torches and cut it up into pieces," he said.

The Irving version:

I owned a Stanley and I had a Doble. The Doble was a great machine, but they both had two big flaws . . . For one thing it took anywhere up to five minutes to get up a head of steam, and the goddam garage could burn down in that time. And also you couldn't get more than 70 or 80 miles to a tankf ul of water . . .

And so I went out one day to the California Institute of Technology and had a talk with Doctor Richard Millikan--he was President of the University and a Nobel Prizewinner --and I told him I ... wanted two real bright boys to come and work for me and to develop the Hughes Steamer ... He found two young kids, Lewis and Burns, and I told them what I wanted ... a steamer that would get up a head of steam instantly, or as close as possible, and one that would give me four to five hundred miles without having to refill the boiler. I put them in a garage out near Caddo's headquarters on Romaine Street and I let them go ...

Lewis and Burns came up with the machine all right. But in the first place, it would cost $30,000 to $50,000 to make each automobile ... I figured I could sell 50 to 100 of them a year, and I still would have had a new car myself whenever I wanted one.

They came up with a flashy-looking five-passenger convertible, a real jazzy-looking machine . . . They told me it would go 400 miles on one tank of water and they had a flash-firing system worked out where they could get up steam in less than half a minute ... I asked them how they solved the water problem and Burns said to me, "Well, we just made the whole body one big radiator, full of tubes."

I looked at them--these bright, eager Caltech kids--and I said, "You mean the whole body is a radiator --including the doors?" Burns said to me, "That's right, sir. You can go 400 miles on a tank of water." I looked at him again and I said, "So tell me what happens if a car runs into me? Into my door, for example. Won't I get cooked? Boiled? Burned to a crisp?"

Well, little by little they turned red ... So I walked away and called Noah and said to him, "Turn that goddam thing into scrap metal. Close up the shop. Project's finished."

* Phelan errs in this account, since Millikan was never president of Caltech. He was chairman of the executive council. Interestingly, Irving repeats this same error in his version of the anecdote, and adds one of his own, mistakenly using Richard as Millikan's first name.

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