Land Speed Record
Arfons' path led almost inevitably to land speed record racing at Bonneville, first in 1960 with the "Anteater", a car modeled after John Cobb's "Railton Special" and powered by an Allison V-1710 aircraft engine. In 1961 he reached a top speed of 313.78 mph (504.98 km/h) before burning out the clutch. Arfons sold the car to Bob Motz.
In 1962, Arfons began experimenting with jet-powered cars, where his innate mechanical skills proved tremendously useful. Art's first car, the 8,000 hp (6 MW) Cyclops, remains the fastest open cockpit vehicle, recording 330.113 miles per hour (531.265 km/h) in the measured mile in 1962. Unfortunately, his design had the driver sitting directly in the air intake to the engine, so that there was no way to enclose the cockpit and still supply air to the engine; this limited top speed severely. In deference to the car's less than excellent aerodynamics, Arfons introduced another innovation: It was the first land speed record car to utilize a wing to produce downforce to prevent the car from becoming airborne.
Arfons returned to Bonneville in 1964 with another Green Monster. He held the world land speed record three times during the closely fought competition of 1964 and 1965, but after a bad crash in 1966 turned his attention to jet turbine powered tractor pulling competition where he was, as usual, successful.In 1979 he won his only NTPA championship in the 9200 Modified class. In 1989, however, he attempted to return to land speed record competition, but was never competitive.
Art's son, Tim Arfons, has continued the tradition by competing in jet-powered dragsters as well as in turbine-powered pulling "funny cars", and has been a stunt and exhibition driver in a series of jet-powered ATVs and even a jet-powered personal watercraft. His daughter Allison "Dusty" Arfons, named after the aircraft engine in the Anteater, also competed in tractor pulling with her father. His oldest son Ronald Arthur Arfons, died on October 23, 2006 at age 58.
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