After fifteen years of prototyping and planning, we've built a hot tub into a 1969 Cadillac and we're going to see how fast it can go! We are getting great FEEDBACK on the Project, with LOTS of people checking out the video. PLEASE MAKE A PLEDGE! If everyone who watched the video pledged just ONE DOLLAR - We'd already be funded!! We don't get any of the funds unless we hit our goal - and we won't be able to RACE if we don't get any funds, so please give us your help! As much as we love the Facebook likes, we can't rent trailers or buy gasoline with them! THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS!! For those with a more pressing technical interest in the Carpool DeVille, please feel free to jump ahead to The Build section, found later in this description. Preamble This all started in 1996 with an abandoned car, a keg of beer, and a quote from Ernest Hemingway: "Always do sober what you say you'd do drunk, that's the only way you'll learn" The car was a 1982 Chevy Malibu, abandoned at a student house by a deadbeat subletter who skipped out on the rent. We were just a humble bunch of McMaster University engineering undergrads, and faced with the prospect of paying someone to haul it away, a decision was reached on the fate of the car -- we'd cut off the roof, and turn it into the world's first driveable, fully operational hot tub: The Carpool. We laughed, we clinked glasses, marveled at the idea, and called it a night. Admittedly, we never thought it would come to be but the next morning people started showing up at the house with power tools -- and the legend of The Carpool was born. The Mk I Carpool The Mk I Carpool For the next few years, The Carpool was a local hero: parked at parties on and off campus, in the end-zone of the homecoming game, anywhere that good times were being had. The best part was always the looks on people's faces when they saw how well these two great North American pastimes go together: hot tubs and driving. While somewhat dubious in its execution (we were just students after all; of limited means and experience), our quirky little project always made people smile. At the 2001 Canadian International Auto Show, the Carpool was a prize exhibit, and we accepted a challenge from some representatives from the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA)--the major sanctioning body of the land speed racing community: If we could get The Carpool to the Bonneville Salt Flats that August, and run the course, they would help get us the Land Speed Record for the "World's Fastest Hot Tub". That Carpool didn't make it to Bonneville that year, or any other year. By 2004, time and the effects of undergraduate plumbing had ravaged the chassis beyond repair -- the car would never be made raceable. Several attempts were made to replace The Carpool Mk.I, but none came close to racing: in 2005, a series 75 stretch Cadillac Limo was bought sight-unseen, off eBay. Hopes were high that this could be the New Carpool, but that car vanished from where it was parked one winter. Inspired by images of the original, other students converted cars to tubs on wheels, 'cargo cult' recreations of what they'd only seen in brochures. In Germany, some guy even converted a Bimmer. None of these were serious Land Speed Record contenders. Time passes. Dreams fade, but legends never die, and the taste for racing runs deep. Hemingway said "there are but three true sports--bullfighting, mountain climbing and motor racing. The rest are merely games." By 2008, a critical mass of Carpool engineers had assembled on the West Coast, and an appropriate car (a rained-out 1969 Coupe DeVille Convertible) was procured. The Carpool DeVille (Mk.III) was born. Over the next six years, the team worked to ready the car, improving its heating, suspension, controls and pool plumbing, while working with the land speed racing community to ensure The Carpool DeVille would meet SCTA's strict safety requirements. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carpool/carpool-deville-the-worlds-fastest-hot-tub?ref=category

• published: 07 Jul 2014
• views: 44900