Steam-powered cars should stay in the past

THE oldest land-speed record of them all has finally fallen. Last week, a British team pushed their steam-powered car to an average speed of 225 kilometres per hour over two runs of 1 mile. It’s good to see steam cars making a comeback, but this world record won’t do much to get them back on the road for real. So spare a thought for the previous record holder, Fred Marriott. For 103 years his name has been the one fixed and familiar point in the ever-shifting pantheon of speed records. Romantics might wish the British team hadn’t bothered.