f there is a story in American motorsports history more compelling than Micke Thompson versus the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, I am not sure what it is. The man conquered everything in his path over the course of a titanic career, except Indy.

His ideas were wild, his concepts extreme, his timelines always stretched. In 1967 he would unveil a car so far out there that the media went crazy, the tech inspectors didn't know where to start, and engineers the country over scratched their heads.

Front engine, front wheel drive, four wheel steering, and a driver seated basically between the rear tires, it was incredible. It was also powered by a custom made 3-valve small block Chevy.

It was also doomed to fail. This is the story of the 1967 Wynn's Spitfire of Mickey Thompson.

There's nothing like upping the horsepower of an engine with boost. Multiple methods of supercharging exist today and have been brought to an incredible level of efficiency.

While these methods were not invented in WWII, their use was vastly studied, tweaked, and tested to their limits back then. This video is the next in a series about the history of centrifugal superchargers and their use on piston engines.

Consider this your 101 level course in WWII supercharging. Here we go over the various methods and systems used on aircraft from the USA, Germany, and Great Britain. Which countries did it best? Which country made a mistake in their method? Who ruled the horsepower roost and why?

It was a war of horsepower and boost was a huge factor in making more of it than the other guys 

This is the story of an engine. Not just any engine, but the engine that created the idea of "American Muscle".

It was the lightest, most powerful airplane engine in the world during WWI and it was designed by two guys in a hotel room during a five day marathon in Washington D.C.in 1917.

Making 450hp and being produced by multiple American car companies, this engine was a master class in simplicity, integration of existing ideas, and mass production.

While it can't really be said that it solved the war for the allies, what it did do was to introduce the idea of an America that stood as a colossus of industry among its peers in the world.

The Liberty V-12 has an awesome story and the engine itself is worthy of your admiration.

While the Liberty V-12 airplane engine of WWI is widely celebrated, there was another Liberty machine that has been all but forgotten.

The WWI Liberty truck was designed and manufactured in great haste for an American Army that had all but forgotten to modernize itself before The Great War began. After chasing Pancho Villa around Mexico with a rag-tag fleet of hundreds of different vehicles in 1916 and early 1917, the US Army finally realized the need for standardized vehicles.

An incredible national effort of engineering and manufacturing was put out to produce an order of more than 40,000 trucks in 1917 and 1918. But did it come too late? Could the nation answer the call?

That's the crux of this story.

The story of the WWI Liberty Truck is about the can-do spirit of a country wholly unprepared for war, the chutzpah of it's leadership in industry, and the idea that when the entire might of a country is thrown behind an effort, magic can happen.

The lingering question though. Was it worth it?

This is the story of the fastest car in the world in 1906. The first car to exceed 120mph and a machine that destroyed the most decorated field of automotive competition ever assembled to that point in history...and it ran on steam.

The accomplishments of this short lived racing marvel are huge in the history of the automobile. The speed record it set stood as the outright automotive land speed record for four years. I

t held the steam powered speed record for 103 years. Yes, 103 years.

This is a historical exploration of the history of the Stanley Brothers, their car company, their adventures with steam, and ultimately their conquering of the world's land speed record with a car that used a body and frame made by a canoe company.

A story of early automotive history, Yankee ingenuity, and plain guts, there are elements of tragedy and triumph you will never see coming.