In 1902, the fastest automobile in the world was electric. At Staten Island, New York, Walter Baker’s Electric Torpedo achieved the miraculous speed of 100 mph. 

In period photographs, Walter C. Baker looks out of place, like a time traveler who lost his way. His three race cars, the Electric Torpedo and the two Torpedo Kids, appear to have landed in the wrong era. In the photo above, taken at the Glenville track in Cleveland, Ohio in September of 1903, one of the Torpedo Kids–the white 999—is lined up with the famous Oldsmobile Pirate on its left and Otto Kunnigslow’s Otto Kar on its right. The photo is totally real, but it looks like a modern Photoshop prank.

Baker’s first streamlined race car was his 1902 Electric Torpedo, above. Under the teardrop-shaped body shell was a simple platform chassis with tandem seating for two  and a chain-drive 14-horsepower Elwell-Parker electric motor mounted behind the passengers. Distributed around them was an array of 40 lead-acid batteries to provide the energy.

The son of a wealthy industrialist and a successful one himself, the 35 year-old Baker invested $10,000 in the project. Among his many enterprises, he was a co-founder of the American Ball Bearing Co. and the founder of the Baker Motor Vehicle Co. of Cleveland, where he appointed himself vice-president and engineer. Thomas Edison’s first car was a Baker Electric.

On May 31, 1902, at a speed trial conducted by the Automobile Club of America on a public road in Staten Island, New York, with Baker at the wheel and his chief mechanic C.E. Denzer in the rear passenger seat, the Electric Torpedo was clocked through the flying kilometer at 100 mph, 25 mph faster than the existing world land speed record, set in France a month earlier. It was a stunning, almost inconceivable speed. It would be two more years before another automobile reached the 100 mph mark.

But only moments later,  the vehicle lost control crossing a set of streetcar tracks and plunged into a group of spectators, striking three people and killing one instantly. Baker and his mechanic were immediately arrested for manslaughter at the scene, but when it was determined that the victims had crossed a safety barrier, the charges were dropped.

Apparently undeterred at this point, Baker built two more electric teardrop racers (shown above with and without body). Smaller and lighter versions of the original Torpedo, they were named the Torpedo Kids and used Baker’s production car motors.

With their sound aerodynamics and low center of gravity, Baker’s racers seemed to be years ahead of the prevailing technology. Baker even included a shoulder harness in his design. But like the original Torpedo, the Torpedo Kids were also plagued with various misfortunes, and in 1903 Baker (below) retired from the speed business to concentrate on electric production cars. In 1914 he merged Baker Motor Car with another Cleveland automaker, Rauch and Lang, and later served on the board at Peerless Motor. He passed away in 1955 at the ripe old age of 86.