Despite the untimely death of project manager Frank Swanston from lung cancer, the British Steam Car Challenge is still on for a record attempt at the Bonneville Salt Flats in August of this year. Before assaulting the World Record, the British team will first tackle the standing record in their home country. Set on July 3, 1938, the British record stands at 126 miles per hour. That's just under the official World Record, which was set in 1906 by Fred Marriott, who drove a modified Stanley Steamer to 127.659 miles per hour.

With their extremely aerodynamic steamer, the British Steam Car Team shouldn't have too much trouble setting a new record later this year. In fact, the team is hoping to break the 200 mile per hour mark. After their historic run is completed, the vehicle is to be placed on permanent display at the National Motor Museum Trust at Beaulieu.

Related:

• Update on the British Steam Car Challenge 200 mph record attempt
• 1906 steam powered car land speed record is in serious danger

In case you are not faimiliar with the term "steampunk", it's a part of the literary sci-fi punk genre. Need more explanation? Consult the all-knowing wiki here. Now that we're all on the same page, check out this electric-steam hybrid motorcycle, built by Tom Sepe. We think that it's pretty cool, although the steam part is a bit misleading. Sure, steam bellows forth from the rear of the bike, but that's for show only. We think it would be epic if the steam boiler powered a turbine which in turn powered the batteries. As it stands, though, this is still an electric motorbike, plus, it throws flames ... and that is cool enough for us. Follow past the break for a short video of the machine in action.

[Source: Steampunk Workshop via The New Cafe Racer Society]

Do you think the future of green engines is just flex-fuels, hybrids or fuel cells? Can you imagine a future with engines that have ethanol turbo-like injection or use steam super-heated by hydrogen? These engines are in the lab today. The video above is a look at a hybrid ethanol injection engine developed at MIT and it could improve mileage by 30 percent.

Below the fold is video of a water-powered car. "Oh, no, not another water car," you say? No, this one is different because it uses a H.A.W or "hydrogen air water" mix and involves super-heating steam to move a piston, says this web page. According to one translation of the video, the Japanese government is looking into it.

[Source: YouTube and tipster Brien]

WIRED has compiled a list of fast green cars. The magazine looked for the fastest cars that ran on a type of green fuel or no fuel at all, like the Volvo Aria in the picture above. That car runs on gravity and won the 2005 extreme gravity race. Ethanol, steam, hydrogen, electric, solar, gravity, human power, wind - they're all in WIRED's list. Of course, Autoblog and AutoblogGreen have covered all of these great, green cars. Except for the Nuna4 solar car, which we somehow missed. Below is WIRED's list with links to our coverage of these cars. Alongside the links are the speeds the cars reached. We were disappointed to see that the White Zombie and especially Buckeye Bullet did not make the list. So, we just might have to make a fastest list of our own. Please vote for your favorite fast green cars in the comments.

1. Ethanol Viper 220.7 MPH
2. Steam Inspiration 215 MPH
3. Hydrogen Ford 207.3 MPH
4. Diesel Audi 204.5 MPH
5. Hybrid Prius 130.8 MPH
6. Electric Tesla 130 MPH
7. Solar Nuna4 80 MPH
8. Gravity Aria 54 MPH
9. Humancar 30 MPH
10. Wind Venturi 31 MPH

[Source: Wired]

Tokyo Institute of Technology Professor Takashi Yabe has demonstrated a process called the Magnesium Energy Cycle. This cycle calls upon "MAGIC" to perform its power generation... really! The process is called the MAGnesium Injection Cycle, which produces steam, hydrogen and magnesium oxide. The hydrogen is burned to create more steam, adding to the power generation. Lastly, the magnesium oxide is broken down into more magnesium and oxygen, which allows that leftover magnesium to be reused as more fuel.

The steam can be used to create more than enough electricity for power production, but to save as much as possible, a solar laser is used for breaking down the magnesium oxide. It is worth mentioning that steam power provides most of our electricity already. Nuclear power plants run large steam turbines as do coal and gas powered plants.

This "MAGIC" process was successfully demonstrated by Mitsubishi back in 2006. Since then, Yabe and his team have been refining the process. As we have said many times, the more ways we can get clean energy the better. This could be one more nail in fossil fuel's coffin.

[Source: Inventor Spot]

Last fall, we alerted you to a land-speed record which is in serious danger of being broken. The record in question was set in 1906, and is for steam powered vehicles (like the one above). One might imagine that steam engines have not made significant advances since then, but that would be untrue. As a matter of fact, steam engines have made huge strides since that record was set, and it's about time that the record books are re-written.

Potential environmental benefits of using steam power become evident when you consider the fact that steam powered engines are capable on running off the heat of any combustible material, and the combustion actually takes place outside of the engine, which is referred to as "external combustion" as opposed to the more common internal combustion engine which powers just about every vehicle on today's roads. Click below for more information.

Related:

• 1906 steam powered car land speed record is in serious danger
• Aerodynamic JCB Dieselmax broke land speed record without wind tunnel testing
• Steam powered bikes in Make magazine

[Source: British Steam Car Challenge via Gizmag]

Four out of five automotive experts agree: We must do something to stop impacting our environment due to our driving habits. (Alright, fine, I made that statistic up.) What they disagree about is how to do it. I thought that sharing some history about how we got to the point we are at might interest some, and provide some insight as to how to get better. This series of articles is not intended to be a complete lesson of all past automotive technologies and achievements; rather, it is just to get an overview of what has been tried, how well it worked and how it may be used in the future. The first article will deal with steam engines and electric motors. Following articles will deal with the different variations of internal combustion. We will visit electric motors and battery systems later in the series. I know that history class was not always the most interesting, so if you just want to know what it means to us now, there is an interesting little story on BMW hybrids to check out at the end ... maybe not the kind you were expecting.

Read the rest after the jump.