Steam-Powered Lada Exists in Russia and It’s the Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of

Sure, the entire team could have been killed or seriously maimed during the experiment, but their point was made: by making only a few, “simple” modifications, they were able to get a car running on steam. The car in question was a Lada Samara they had to cut a big chunk of, and then fitted with a coal burner / stove and a tank, together with the installation that fed steam into the engine.

You can see the entire video at the bottom of the page, courtesy of the official Garage 54 YouTube channel. It’s long but it’s worth the viewing because it details every step in the process and adds plenty of humor.

The conclusion of the experiment was that it was a success: they only wanted to prove that it could be done, even with rudimentary modifications. Because, make no mistake about it, this thing makes Frankenstein’s monster look like a cutie. They also had some suggestions in order to get the car running longer or being able to go uphill: a bigger engine and more pressure.

However, as things stood, they were only able to get about 4 atmospheres in the cylinders, which was enough to keep the Lada moving on short stretches. At 6 atmospheres, the tank began to get “a bit puffy,” and they were afraid to increase the pressure afterwards, lest the whole contraption blew up.

“An internal combustion engine can be easily converted into a steam engine,” the driver says at the end of the experiment, reckoning that 8 or 10 atmospheres would turn the Lada into a “rocketship.” He also remarked that, running on steam, the car made no noise and considerably fewer vibrations than it did when running on gasoline.

The sight of steam coming from the exhaust pipe was also quite satisfying, he says. He doesn’t say a peep of the thick plume of smoke coming from the chimney where coals and wood burned, though.