A coffee for me and one for the car please

Cars run on petrol, diesel and electricity right? Has there ever been one that ran on coffee? Surely not? But yes it has been done and what’s more it made the 337km distance between London and Manchester in March 2010 only powered by coffee. The vehicle was called the ‘Car-puccino’, yeah we know funny right?

Normally, if you put coffee into your engine, you can expect it to make bad noises shortly before shuddering to a rapid halt and requiring a lengthy time in the garage being repaired but the ‘Car-puccino’ used a highly modified engine that heat coffee grounds until they split releasing carbon dioxide and hydrogen and it was the latter that was cooled and then combusted to drive the vehicle on its record breaking journey.

Car-Puccino used a 1988 Volkswagon Scirocco and used a kilo of ground coffee for three miles, or 56 espressos a mile, and the entire journey used approximately 11,760 espressos, giving a top speed of 60mph. Above all, the team will have to stop every 60 miles to clean coffee filters; it took ten hours to complete the journey.