This is Ron Patrick's street-legal jet car on full afterburner. The car has two engines: the production gasoline engine in the front driving the front wheels and the jet engine in the back. The idea is that you drive around legally on the gasoline engine and when you want to have some fun, you spin up the jet and get on the burner (you can start the jet while driving along on the gasoline engine). The car was built because Ron wanted the wildest street-legal ride possible. With this project, he was able to use some stuff he learned while getting his fancy engineering degree (He has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University) to design a street-legal jet car without the distraction of how other people have done it in the past - because no one has. He has no idea how fast the car will go and probably never will. The car was built to thrill Ron, not kill him. Naturally that doesn't stop him from the occasional blast on the highway.

Here's the interesting part, at least for me; The car is licensed in California. Apparently, in California, new cars have bi-annual smog inspections so if you modify the engine, it is likely to fail the inspection and you won't be able to drive it on the street. There are some exempt engine modifications (ex. after-cat mufflers - big deal) but none that will allow you to add 1350 hp to a new car.

After all this is mentioned, Ron goes into a little rant about the people who run car shows and their stupidity when he was given advice on how to modify the car for showing. That’s why I stopped going to car shows, cruise-ins and always hated car clubs; my ride is my ride for my pleasure and everyone else can go show off their stickers and un-driveable cars with other like-minded people The engineering alone here makes this a top runner in any show.

See more pics and information @ http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

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