That's the RAK 1, made by the Opel car company, the largest in Germany, at the Opel Works in Rüsselsheim, Bavaria, with the financial backing of the glamorous Fritz von Opel. Having the apparatus of a corporate public relations staff whose press releases were snapped up by every newspaper, a unique advantage over every other rocket enthusiast of the day, von Opel saw to it that the RAK 1 made worldwide headlines from the results of a test on April 11, 1928, with the foolhardy driver Kurt Volkhart at the wheel. The car, thirty years ahead of its time, went from zero to sixty in eight seconds - equal to the performance of the fabled 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL sports car.

 

On April 13, the Dundee Courier of Angus, Scotland, gushed at the announcement:

 

[The car] was not driven by a petrol engine but by a so-called rocket about which details cannot be disclosed, but it can be said it was constructed in accordance with the plan of the German Max Valier, known as the "Fantastic Cosmos Flier" because of his idea of building a rocket which could be sent out into space. ...

 

"We are convinced [said Opel's statement] that the "Opel Sander Aggregate, as the new machine is called, will achieve a speed hitherto considered impossible on the surface of the earth, and it will prove to be only a step toward the construction of a rocket air machine and to a cosmos airship on the lines of the Valier project."

 

The sky literally was no longer the limit, the Hull Daily Mail thought:

 

Is the navigation of the upper regions beyond the earth’s atmosphere already within the range of practical possibility? That this is not a fantastic as it sounds is to be inferred from an official statement made by the Opel motor firm to-day [April 12 press release, printed in the paper on April 13].

 

They confidently expect (states the “Morning Post” correspondent) to be able in the present year to send beyond the bounds of the terrestrial atmosphere a machine driven on the “rocket” principle. …

 

The "rocket" principle of propulsion consists of driving into the open, out of pipes at terrific speed, gases whose recoil drives the machine forward. The "Opel rocket car," constructed by Herr Sander, uses a specially prepared powder, which is pumped into a combustion chamber, whence it passes out through numerous pipes in gas form with enormous energy.

 

It is the first successful attempt of its kind that has ever been made, and promises to rank among the most notable achievements in science in the present century.

 

Less than two weeks after that, von Opel gave a public demonstration on a track in Berlin, an article easily seen everywhere in Britain through the wire services, as in this article appearing in the May 24, 1928, Hartlepool Mail:

 

There was a loud hissing sound and then a deafening roar. Some of the more nervous spectators made a dive for safety, and the craning heads were quickly withdrawn as a black object with a flaming tale several feet long hurtled past. A thick pall of smoke descended, in which at first one could scarcely see one's neighbour. As it cleared ... there was a momentary glimpse of the driver with his hair streaming straight out behind him, and then the flaming tail, and then the smoke-cloud descended again. ...

 

It is stated that the maximum speed attained on this short run - the limits of the Avus track do not allow of a "full out" test - was about 180 kilometres (112 miles) an hour.