8 replies to this topic

[Pete Stowe]

Can anyone provide some basic information on the Russian Pioneer 2 turbine powered speed record car of the 1960s – who designed and built it, where was it built, what make & type were the engines, what official records were achieved & who drove it (in mid 60s it held some FIA records for turbine cars over).

And were there also Pioneer 1 or Pioneer 3 cars.

Any information gratefully received.
(A recent Classic & Sports Car pictured such a car in the Riga Motor Museum, but included few other details – an e-mail to the museum has not (so far) produced a reply.)

[Alexey Rogachev]

Pete,

I shall try to help you. I think it's possible to find some information about Pioner (this is the correct spelling) Soviet record cars. I don't know exactly how many Pioners were built (perhaps more than three), but all the information which I shall find will be posted to this thread. Please, wait for two or three days. OK?

Alexey Rogachev

[2500TC]

Originally posted by Pete Stowe
Can anyone provide some basic information on the Russian Pioneer 2 turbine powered speed record car of the 1960s – who designed and built it, where was it built, what make & type were the engines, what official records were achieved & who drove it (in mid 60s it held some FIA records for turbine cars over).

And were there also Pioneer 1 or Pioneer 3 cars.

Any information gratefully received.
(A recent Classic & Sports Car pictured such a car in the Riga Motor Museum, but included few other details – an e-mail to the museum has not (so far) produced a reply.)

There are details of other Soviet speed record cars to be found on the "Autosoviet" site, but no Pioners... Still you might find other sources from there.

[just me again]

I found this website on another tread, there is nothing about Pioner record cars, but there is GAZ turbo-jet prototype from 1954.

Bjørn

http://digilander.li...e-formula.htm#0

[Pete Stowe]

Alexey,
Anything you can find will be of interest

2500TC and Bjorn,
Thanks for the clues, I'll check them out

[Alexey Rogachev]

Here are some information on Pioners. First, there was the only car called Pioner, and it was in fact the modified Kharkov-L1 by Eduard Lorent. When Lorent started working at his new project, the Kharkov-L2, he lost an interest to L1, and this car in 1960 came to Ilya Tikhomirov, an engineer from Moscow. He equipped the car with two little gas turbines installed on the right and on the left of the driver's seat. These turbines produced nearly 100 hp at 50000 rpm as a whole. This version is known as the Pioner-1. It reached 251 kph in its first attempt.

Later, in 1961, the total turbines capacity increased up to 135 hp, and the car (this its version was called Pioner-2) reached 306.6 kph. On September 1, 1963 Tikhomirov reached 311.4 kph which became an absolute speed record of the USSR. He continued to drive his car (there was the latest version of it called Pioner-2M) until 1972 and beat 13 national and international speed records during this period.

P.S. GAZ turbo jet record car really existed, but it was only one attempt to test it on road. An accident happened during this attempt, so this project was stopped.

[Pete Stowe]

Many thanks Alexey, brilliant work And the Kharkov-L1 is described & pictured on the Autosoviet site

[Alexey Rogachev]

OK, Pete, that means that you know what was Kharkov-L1 by the way, what site have you refered to? I've never known about it.

[Pete Stowe]

It's the same one than Bjorn posted a link to earlier in this thread.