The Steam Dream

Homemade and handcrafted non-polluting vehicles and bicycles powered by steam.

By the Mother Earth News editors

November/December 1972

Surprisingly (or, perhaps, not so surprisingly) one of the all-time favorite articles ever printed in THE Mother Earth News harks clear back to the very first MOTHER printed. The piece, entitled "The Little Car That Could" briefly outlined a method whereby a commune or other group of kindred souls could enjoy both a good life and a good living, building and selling, steam cars on a handcrafted basis. We picked it up from the Berkeley TRIBE where it was first published by a fellow identified only as "MASON" and-whether MASON knows it or not-his little fantasy sparked similar fantasies (we call 'em "steam car dreams") in a whole lot of folk.

Well, for what it's worth, we received a tantalizing glimpse UWE that the steam dream-homemade and handcrafted non-polluting vehicles built and sold from a minifactory out on the homestead somewhere-might still come to pass. For someone, somewhere has designed and built and actually operates a real, genuine steam powered bicycle There it is . . . we've got the photo to prove it.

The only trouble is the that the guy who sent us this photo (and promised to do a test report and construction article for us) has dropped out of sight. What you see here-and the fact that this particular the upper Midwest-is all we know about the machine

Can anyone fill us in with further details? There are a lot of MOTHER readers anxious for the information.