Opel RAK 2: The 1928 Rocket Car World Speed Record

Some record cars push an engine to its limits. The Opel RAK 2 didn’t have one at all. Built by Fritz von Opel — racing driver, engineer, and grandson of Opel founder Adam Opel — the RAK 2 grew out of a partnership with Austrian rocket researcher Max Valier and solid-fuel rocket manufacturer Friedrich Sander, formed after a conversation in the autumn of 1927 convinced von Opel to explore rocket propulsion as a way to demonstrate his company’s innovative edge.

An early prototype, later known as the RAK 1, hit 100 km/h in eight seconds using twelve rockets on a modest Opel 4/12 chassis. Building on that success, the team developed the RAK 2 specifically to chase a speed record at Berlin’s high-speed AVUS track — longer than its predecessor, aerodynamically refined, and fitted with 24 solid-fuel rockets generating six tons of thrust, sequentially ignited via an electric foot pedal. The entire car weighed just 560 kilograms.

On May 23, 1928, in front of roughly 3,000 invited guests — journalists, celebrities, and politicians among them — von Opel stepped on the ignition pedal and let the rockets fire, one after another, reaching a top speed of 238 km/h (148 mph) and setting a new world speed record. He later admitted the car nearly got away from him in the corners, its stabilizing wings not providing enough downforce at speed — an early, hard lesson in automotive aerodynamics. The run made Opel a household name for innovation and helped usher in what the press of the time called the “rocket age.”