1. Whatever happened to rocket brakes?

In 1946 the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in the United States developed a car braking system that relied on two rockets mounted behind the bonnet at a 45-degree angle. When ignited, they would send dual blasts skywards, pushing the vehicle down and bringing it to a dramatic stop.

Plans to market the system were shelved amid concerns about carrying a cylinder of rocket fuel in the family car, and the likelihood of frying anyone standing near the blast.

2. The remarkable inventor of cruise control

During World War II, fuel rationing led to motorists being restricted to 35mph. To help drivers stick to this speed, American automotive engineer Ralph Teetor designed the precursor to cruise control. Known as the Speedostat, it wasn’t completely ready for use until after the war.

This early version acted more like a governor, preventing the car travelling any faster than the preset speed, but it couldn’t be kept at that speed without using the accelerator.

Teetor later developed a ‘speed lock’ mechanism that allowed the vehicle to be driven at a constant speed without using the accelerator or brake. In 1958, Chrysler adopted Speedostat, offering it as an option in its luxury models. But it was General Motors that coined the term ‘cruise control’ when it was made available in Cadillacs.

So, what makes Teetor a particularly remarkable engineer and inventor? He was completely blind, having lost sight in one eye when he was five, following an accident with a knife. Later, his other eye was blinded by an extremely rare condition known as sympathetic ophthalmia – an autoimmune inflammatory disease that affects the good eye.

3. How long to drive to the sun?

Light from the sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth. If you could drive to the big hydrogen fireball in the family car – in a straight line at a constant 100km/h – it would take more than 171 years to arrive.

Of course, the trip would be complicated by a lack of air, gravity and service stations. The -270°C temperature in space would also make the journey a little uncomfortable… and it could get a tad warm near the sun.

So, it looks like Victor Harbor again this summer.

4. Most expensive speeding fine

Traffic fines in Switzerland are linked to an offender’s income. This didn’t turn out too well for a wealthy Swedish driver who was clocked doing 290km/h in his Mercedes SLS AMG on a Swiss freeway in 2010.

He’d exceeded the speed limit by 170km/h, which was too fast for most of the cameras he’d passed to record.

But a more hi-tech camera snapped him on the freeway between Bern and Lausanne and he was hit with an eye-watering 1,080,000 Swiss francs ($A1.68 million) fine. This was later reduced to a mere 27,000 francs ($A42,150).

He claimed that the speedo must have been busted, but a local mechanic discovered the driver had disconnected it.

5. Monster truck

A road train consists of a powerful prime mover hauling at least two trailers. At more than 50m in length, Australia has the world’s longest road-legal road trains, which transport fuel, livestock, mining equipment and other goods around the outback.

But even these monsters are dwarfed by the Guinness World Records holder for the longest road train. On 18 February 2006, John Atkinson hitched 113 trailers behind his Mack Titan prime mover and dragged them 150m down a road in Clifton, Queensland.

The total length of the rig was more than a kilometre – 1474.3m to be exact.