Well now I've seen everything.
Meet the "Carpaccino." It certainly isn't the first caffeine-driven car I've encountered; after all, I drive one every morning. But it is the first I'm aware of powered via direct java injection to the engine rather than the driver. It's hard enough to fathom such a utopian vehicle exists, let alone that the land speed record it just broke has since 1988. Where have these things been hiding the past 23 years? Where is the French Roast formula car? Clearly there should be more overlap between these two institutions beyond Starbucks NASCAR sponsorship and the scene where Sacha Baron-Cohen's character spills his macchiato in Talladega Nights, even though—and call me a snob—I've always found it more of a Miller Light kind of venue.
Leave it to Brits to conquer this uncharted territory. The caffeinated clunker, which bears strange semblance to a certain 1985 modified DeLorean, uses a process called "gasification" to derive combustible gas from burnt waste coffee pellets, sending a smell out the tailpipe more "like a house fire" than roasting arabica. Apparently this WWII-era technology only flies with carbureted engines, so you need a piece of crap car for the conversion.
The end goal: be a traveling statement to teach kids coffee is "more than just a drink in a cup." Park it, Prius.
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