LAHARPE — It’s not the most fun to drive.
With a touchy throttle, extended nose and limited visibility, most would hesitate to try the custom-made “rocket car.”
But for Suzanne and Ray Vader, driving the car takes Suzanne back to her childhood and once again appreciate her father’s genius.
The rocket car, built from scratch in the early 1970s by Elsmore native Earl Miner, was a focal point of the Boler-Miner family reunion over the weekend in LaHarpe, Elsmore and Hepler.
At first glance, most passersby thought it was an airplane.
“But it doesn’t fly,” Ray Vader says with a chuckle.
THE ROCKET car was one of Miner’s many inventions.
As a mechanic in the Air Force and a confessed tinkerer, “Dad was always working on something,” Suzanne Vader said. “He liked to build things, and he really liked rockets.”
So in 1973, Miner began construction of his rocket car.
He started with a hand-made aluminum frame, equipped with a 1967 Chevy 327-cubic-inch V-8 engine, and a two-speed power glide transmission.
With the assistance of Air Force pal Gary Shelton, Miner took about nine months to complete the project.
All of it was built by hand, aside from the engine and rear axle, which came from a 1969 Dodge.
“The front-wheel mechanism, he designed and built,” Suzanne Vader said. “There was some trial and error, but he kept at it.”
Earl got the vehicle registered and insured — because it only had three wheels, it originally was licensed as a motorcycle — so he could drive it as his regular car while living in southern Missouri.
“It’s been said the Missouri Highway Patrol clocked him at 140 mph during one test drive, but Earl was the only one who ever attempted to drive fast. I certainly don’t. It doesn’t drive or handle well.”
