235mph racer for sale – because it's too slow
Reason for sale: it's too slow.
Owner Ian Caseley is asking £20,000 for the 28ft-long jet-propelled RoadZombie II to help fund an even faster machine.
He wants to build a four-wheeled beast that will rocket him forward at 380mph – 80mph faster than presenter Richard Hammond was going when he crashed in a stunt for TV show Top Gear.
Mr Caseley, 41, who lives on a farm in Redhill near Bristol and designs specialist racing car parts, said: "I have got to the stage where I have enjoyed the car and won't get anything more out of it.
"I've got used to going that fast, and want something that goes a bit quicker."
Now he wants to sell his labour of love to someone who would like to get involved with drag racing.
But buyer beware – travelling at 280mph is no mean feat.
Mr Caseley said: "It is just like sitting in your favourite armchair at home and being propelled forward on a big bungee down the road.
"Crazy as it sounds, I'm not mad. My jet dragster is one of the safest vehicles to drive, and there are so many in-built safety features that when it was inspected by the Motor Sport Association they were surprised at the way it was controlled.
"It has got two parachutes as brakes, and if I was to pass out in the car it would shut down automatically and stop on its own.
"No other car in England or Europe can do that, and I have never had a crash."
Mr Caseley got the bug for drag racing in 2001. He was racing his 1959 Ford 100E at the drag strip at Stratford-upon-Avon when he met Colin Fallows, the British land speed record holder, who was racing a drag car.
Mr Caseley said: "I thought 'I could do that' but no one took me seriously and for about a year people thought I was an idiot."
He bought a jet engine from Rolls-Royce and spent six months figuring out how it worked before approaching the company for technical information.
He said: "They wouldn't help because I wasn't an employee and they were concerned about giving me information that could damage me."
So he went to Germany for help and later to America, where he met chassis experts, before returning to England and employing the best chassis builder in the country.
In 2004, after three years of hard work and £60,000 of investment, his car was finished.
He raced for three seasons at the Santa Pod raceway in Northampton, but after a close friend who had worked on the car throughout from the start died in February, Mr Caseley thought it was time to look for something different.
He said: "Just over a year ago I went to Mexico and met a chap who is a world authority on rockets.
"So now I have had a rocket engine made that runs on propulsion-grade hydrogen peroxide.
"It's got twice the thrust of the jet engine – almost four tons– and I am looking at doing 380mph in just over four seconds for a quarter mile flat."
His new machine – RoadZombieIII – is likely to take years of work, and £100,000 to get it on the road, but he says it will probably be the fastest car in the country.
And he would like to find a new home for his old car, which is stored at his workshop in Cheddar, as well as an investor for his new project.
He said: "It can either sit in the workshop or it can be passed to someone else who might love it."
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