SPEED ON WHEELS; ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?

Regarding Bill Sharpsteen’s dismissal of Craig Breedlove’s attempt to break the sound barrier in a car (“The Fastest Car in the World?” Sept. 1): The collective technological genius of this country long ago abandoned such romanticism and sensibly applied itself to the commercial manufacture of smart bombs and Chrysler minivans. And so we are left with throwbacks like Breedlove and the fabled kid who strapped a military solid-fuel rocket to his Chevy Impala and smashed it into an Arizona cliff at about 300 mph.

Breedlove’s hoped-for moment will be lost on those who would look for sense and profit in it. Hence its beauty would be lost as well.

Brad Zukovic

Port Hueneme

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As an advocate of the pursuit of horsepower, I was torqued by Sharpsteen’s dismissive take on Breedlove’s quest. The assertion that “a car equipped with a surplus jet engine seems crude compared to the infinitely swift power of a Pentium computer chip” misses the point. The pursuit of Mach 1 by visionaries such as Breedlove and Richard Noble is bold and outrageous, the embodiment of grace and elegance, not “Neanderthal breast-beating,” as Sharpsteen calls it.

And things can go horribly wrong: Shock waves will almost certainly send the vehicle careening out of control at between 740 and 765 mph. But that’s what makes these efforts interesting and provocative. There’s a nobility in failure as well as accomplishment.

Cole Coonce

https://websites.earthlink.net/~nitronic