Now, About That Steam Car, Howard- You've read the Irving version And the Phelan version . . . Here's the Daugherty version.

The Irving Version In the heat of the hassle over who really Bruce had even built a small steam auto wrote Howard Hughes' autobiography, -a little fellow that held just one I owned a Stanley and I had a Doble. passenger. There was no body on it, no The Doble was a great machine, but they the prospective publishers of the material both had two big flaws . . . For one thing (Time-Life and McGraw-Hill) released a top, or anything. It was just a little flat it took anywhere up to five minutes to get up few selected passages from the Clifford thing that stood only a couple of feet off a head of steam, and the goddam garage Irving manuscript and some comparable the ground. In addition to the boiler he could burn down in that time. And also you passages from an earlier unpublished had welded on an acetylene tank to supply couldn't get more than 70 or 80 miles to a manuscript prepared for a former the lights and a welding torch that he tankful of water. Hughes aide, Noah Dietrich, by writer carried around on the car to put the And so I went out one day to the California lames Phelan. thing back together when something fell Institute of Technology and had a talk with One critical passage concerned Hughes' off or it needed repairs around the frame. Doctor Richard Millikan-he was President of the University and a Nobel Prizewinner $500,000 effort to develop a steam car, Within a half hour of that first call to -and I told him I . . . wanted two real with the aid of a couple of Caltech grad- me I had reached Howard Lewis at bright boys to come and work for me and to uates, Bruce Burns, '19, and Howard Riverside High School where he was develop the Hughes Steamer . . . He Lewis, '23-and the Irving version is teaching physics. Later that day both he found two young kids, Lewis and Burns, and indeed remarkably similar to the Phelan and Bruce were in touch with the Hughes I told them what I wanted . . . a steamer version. But neither one tells the real story. company. A few days later the Hughes that would get up a head of steam instantly, Herewith, our sensational, hitherto highly man called again and told me that they or as close as possible, and one that would unpublished third version-which is prob- had been looking for two such men for give me four to five hundred miles without ibly much closer to the truth. two years. having to refill the boiler. I put them in a garage out near Caddo's headquarters on Our story comes from spry 86-year-old Hughes set up quarters for Burns and Lewis over in Hollywood. They worked Romaine Street and I let them go . , . Robert L. Daugherty, professor emeritus Lewis and Burns came up with the machine >f mechanical engineering. He was chair- on the steam car project for a year or two all right. But in the first place, it would cost nan of the department when Burns and as employees of the Hughes Tool $30,000 to $50,000 to make each automobile Lewis were in school, taught them both, Company. I visited their machine shop . . . I figured I could sell 50 to 100 of vas instrumental in recruiting them for several times. It was strewn with tools, them a year, and I still would have had a new he Hughes steam car project, and kept an equipment, and various components of car myself whenever I wanted one. ictive interest in the project from its steam engines-boilers, condensers, and They came up with a flashy-looking five- so on. They said they were attempting to passenger convertible, a real jazzy-looking beginning in 1925 until it was dropped. machine . . . They told me it would go work on the components separately, 400 miles on one tank of water and they had rhe Daugherty Version improving each before they tried to build a flash-firing system worked out where they a complete engine. Months later Howard could get up steam in less than half a minute Dr. Millikan had nothing to do with . . . I asked them how they solved the he Hughes steam car affair at all. He water problem and Burns said to me, "Well, iidn't know either of those boys. Burns we just made the whole body one big 'raduated in June of 191 9, but he stayed radiator, full of tubes." >nan extra semester to make up some I looked at them-these bright, eager mits. Millikan came to the Institute as Caltech kids-and I said, "You mean the :hairman of the executive committee in whole body is a radiator-including the doors?" Burns said to me, "That's right, sir. 920. Lewis graduated in 1923 and had You can go 400 miles on a tank of water." 10 contact whatsoever with Millikan. I looked at him again and I said, "So tell me It all started one day in 1925-about what happens if a car runs into me? Into my p.m.-when I received a call from some- door, for example. Won't I get cooked? ~odyin the Hughes organization. Not Boiled? Burned to a crisp?" toward Hughes himself. This man said Well, little by little they turned red . . . hey were interested in developing the So I walked away and called Noah and said team automobile. They wanted to know to him, "Turn that goddam thing into scrap f I knew of a couple of young men who metal. Close up the shop. Project's finished." vould be interested in such a project. certainly did. As seniors in mechanical ngineering here, Howard and Bruce had >adsingle-track minds on the subject of team automobiles. Whatever academic ourse either of them was taking, if it lad some possible bearing on the steam ngine, they were interested. If it didn't, hey didn't want to bother with it. Howard Lewis in 1923 because Hughes apparently lost interest in the whole project before they had really made any headway. It is my understand- ing that he had gotten interested in developing a "thief-proof" lock, and wanted them to work on that. Both the Irving and Phelan stories talk about a radiator system that had tubes lining the entire car. This is nonsense. The radiator and boiler system were in The Phelan Version the front of every version I saw, so there would have been no danger of being scalded to death. I don't think Hughes Howard preferred his Doble over his Stanley . . . but he was critical of both saw a complete prototype. Rather, he saw because they took too much time to get up a standard Stanley or Doble with a lot of steam, and they had relatively short non-stop the components added. cruising ranges. They consumed water at what Burns and Lewis were switched to work Howard considered an inordinate rate, and on the thief-proof lock and became the had to stop about every 60 or 70 miles for a nucleus of the Hughes Development refill. Company. Lewis was manager, with "I can get better performance than that," Burns as vice president and Mrs. Burns he told me, and set out methodically to as secretary. They began to recruit a build the world's best steamer. He and I Robert Daugherty in 1927 number of engineers as Hughes' interests went to California Institute of Technology and conferred with Dr. Robert Millikan, its diversified and he jumped from project to president and the 1923 Nobel Prizewinner project. About 25 persons were employed in physics. Hughes told Dr. Millikan that he visited me at Caltech and took me riding at one time-with about 8 from Caltech. wanted to employ two of his brightest in a Stanley Steamer in which they were Russell Otis, of the class of 1920, a engineering graduates, men with creative trying out some of the different boilers physicist, was one of the first. He was imagination. Dr. Millikan recommended two they were making. He said they were hired as research director. He died in young men named Burns and Lewis. trying to develop a flash boiler which 1960. Larry Grunder, a mechanical "I want a steamer that will get under way could get up steam very quickly. engineer who graduated in 1929, was in 20 seconds, starting from a cold stop," another employee, as was Clarence Elliott, he stipulated. "With the present steamer, it Steamers at that time took several minutes takes from two to five minutes to get up to work up enough power. They were a graduate of Cornell, who was an steam. If I had a fire, I wouldn't be able to trying to reduce this to less than a minute. instructor in engineering drawing at get them out of the garage. Second, I want a They were working on the condenser Caltech. The company was well funded steamer that will run from Los Angeles to (radiator) system too. by Hughes, but none of the projects they San Francisco on one filling of water." Such development work takes time, worked on got too far because he kept He installed the pair in rented quarters on since anything of this kind has to have a losing interest. Romaine Street out near the present Sunset lot of automatic controls and takes a lot of According to Grunder, the group Strip . . . I asked Hughes what he thought work to make the various components worked at various times on such projects he could do with such a high-priced hand- as wire recorders, hearing aids, high- made car if it proved feasible . . . "Well," mesh properly. But it turned out that he said defensively, "it's really just a sort of Burns and Lewis didn't have the time, speed color cameras, assorted aircraft hobby for me. If we put it into production, ventures, and a multicolor process to we couldn't sell more than 25 to 50 cars a compete with Technicolor. year, and we'll probably have to charge When Hughes got interested in the $25,000 or $30,000 each. I think some of my technical side of making movies, it sportsmen friends would buy them at that spelled the beginning of the end for the price . . . " research group. That led him into produc- Burns and Lewis were waiting for us at ing movies, and there was no further their workshop, eager to show off their need for Burns and Lewis and their group masterpiece . . . The engineers assured him that it was fast starting and could run at -so in 1931 Hughes abandoned the least 400 miles on a single filling of water. organization. "How did you manage that?" Hughes asked. In 1930 Hughes produced his first The engineers proudly explained . . . motion picture, Hell's Angels. Lewis "You mean the entire body contains became general manager of one of radiators, including the doors?" Hughes Hughes' companies, Multicolor Ltd., but asked . . . "Well tell me, then, if I'm a year later left to set up his own company. driving along and somebody in another car In 1941 he became a partner in a consult- broadsides me, what happens?" There was an ing engineering firm. He died in 1957. embarrassing silence. "I'd get scalded to death, right?'Hughes said . . . Without Burns is now in semi-retirement in ever firing up his $550,000 super-steamer Yucca Valley, California. Grunder is a . . . he ordered it junked. "Dismantle it, consulting engineer living in La Habra. get some torches and cut it up into pieces," Elliott now lives in Los Angeles. Otis he said. went into practice as a consulting engineer and patent attorney. When he died in 1960, he was vice president of the Oil Bruce Burns in 191 9 Shale Corporation of Beverly Hills.