Gilmore Falcon

			The Gilmore Falcon is in Cookeville, Tennessee where it belongs to Jim Hall. The car was originally made in 1964 by D. S. Gilmore of Gilmore Museum fame and Upjohn Pharmaceutical fortune. It is a modification of a six cylinder in-line gasoline engine using the original pistons as crossheads. It is an example of almost every possible poor design decision that anyone could possibly made with the addition of a few very creative errors on top of it.
The castings for the three double acting slide valve steam cylinders were originally made by an old guy for a steam boat and thus they are of very traditional design. The assumption being, clearly, made that there was only one way to design a steam engine and that was exactly as they had been designed 150 years prior to this car.
The boiler was a Stanley design in the trunk with a gun type kerosene burner firing from below. By the time the installation was done there was very little ground clearance. Here again, the assumption was made that there was only one way to make a steam generator and that was to use a VFT style boiler as had been designed 150 years prior. Between the limited steam making capacity of the boiler and the original gearing of the IC engine and drive train the rumor is that this car would only go 25 miles an hour. (Note: Click on a picture to see a larger view and then use your browser to enlarge it further.)