Steaming Rubber: The team hopes to smash the land-speed record for a steam-powered vehicle: Andrew Crowley/Telegraph Syndication

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Ten years of toil for a ride lasting less than two minutes -- that's the trade a team of Britain's finest engineers, mechanics and speed junkies have made for a chance to break the century-old speed record for a steam-powered vehicle. Using propane to turn 10 gallons of water a minute into superheated steam, they expect their 25-foot-long Steam Car to top out at 275kph, shattering the record by more than 60kph.

The pet project of auto aficionado and British nobleman Edward Montagu, the machine was built from a mishmash of donated, salvaged and new or custom-fabricated parts that seemingly have no place working together: steam valves from a nearby power station, a fire engine's water pump, heating elements from tea kettles. The group also designed 12 suitcase-size stainless-steel micro-boilers, where a mixture of propane gas and air flows in and ignites at temperatures nearing 1,100ºC, generating a whopping three megawatts of heat. "We couldn't just pick a boiler design out of a book. It didn't exist," says lead engineer Matt Candy. "We had to create it."

For the full story check out the November issue of Popular Science, out now!