White Flier -- December 17, 2007

I sometimes mention that I enjoy the look of pre-WWII racing cars. Here we have Gus Seyfried, who drove the "rakish" steam-powered White Flier (shouldn't that be Flyer?) to a 59 second mile on the muddy track at Tanforan on 06-December-1908. Barney Oldfield could not do better than 1 minute, 3 seconds. Seyfried was from the area. I like the look of the car's front end. Note the steam exhaust pipe ahead of the cockpit. During a later qualifying heat, a "defective pilot light" put the car out of commission. This is from the 07-December-1908 San Francisco Call.