Walt Arfons built the first jet-engine dragster, and the land-speed record car “Wingfoot Express” seen here as it fires up its side rockets during a test run at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The driver was Bob Tatroe.

Anybody intimately familiar with the motorsports world knows that Walt Arfons passed away about two weeks ago on June 4, 2013. At age 96, his health had been declining over the last few years due to heart problems and was recently admitted to an Akron, Ohio hospital. But that’s not the story we are here to tell. Walt was one of the pioneers of fast cars. As a matter of, Walt Arfons and his half-brother Art built and drove some of the fastest cars that ever existed on this planet.

Walt Arfons, a daredevil racer, in his famous dragster, the Green Monster.

It all began when they were very young. After graduating from high school, Walt was a Navy mechanic. In the late 1940s, he and Art bought World War II training planes and taught themselves to fly. The first racing breakthrough for the two began when they replaced souped-up car engines with airplane engines. And a coat of tractor paint on their first awkward looking entry at a local track had the announcer calling it the Green Monster, a name that stuck for many years on increasingly faster cars.

In 1963, Walt built a sleek jet-powered race car, he called the Wingfoot Express, that hit an average speed of 413.2 mph. It was the fastest car on Earth. But that lasted for just three days. Unfortunately by this time, their competitive natures brought about problems and their partnership had fallen apart. The two men were said to have never fought publicly, but when 72 hours later Art hauled his own jet-powered race car onto Utah’s desolate Bonneville Salt Flats and, whipping along at 434.03 mph, snagged the record, it is said that Art had to be prodded into congratulating him. 

The two “quietly reconciled” toward the end of their lives, a family member said, but for many years the speed pioneers that started out as partners didn’t speak, though neighbors on a family farm, building ultra-fast vehicles in adjacent workshops. Both men were brilliant do-it-yourselfers, divining the intricacies of jet engines without an owner’s manual.

1964 photo of Walt Arfons, center with Wingfoot Express crewman Jimmy Taylor, left, and Douglas Yates Rose, right. Photo courtesy: Douglas Yates Rose

Art Arfons died in 2007 at 81. He was buried in his protective racing gear with a wrench in each hand and a jar of Bonneville salt in his casket. Born in Muncie, IN, on Dec. 10, 1916, Walt Arfons pioneered not only jet-propelled race cars but their parachute systems. He also was the first person in motorsports to rig up ultra-high-speed cars with rockets.