Mentos and Diet Coke Guys Launch New Rocket Car

by Jason Best, Posted Jun 1st 2010 @ 12:00PM

The Mentos and Diet Coke guys are back -- in 3D! Almost four years to the day after Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe posted the (literally) explosive video featuring the Vegas-worthy fountains that they created from nothing more than Mentos dropped into two-liter bottles of Diet Coke, the pair has returned with a striking new gambit.

Their latest feat? A rocket car powered by (you guessed it) Mentos and Coke Zero. If, in an age of evermore rapid technological advancement, four years seems like a long time to wait for the next generation of candy-and-soda fueled propulsion, it's not like Voltz and Grobe have been holed up in their lab in Buckfield, Maine the whole time. What started out as a backyard gag of the "dude, do you know what happens when you mix Mentos and Coke" variety turned into one of the most viral videos of all time and quickly launched the duo into the stratosphere of internet-born celebrity, with appearances everywhere from Letterman to Ellen, corporate-speaking gigs, performances with the Blue Man Group, and videos for Barenaked Ladies and Weezer.

The video after the jump.

But for the moment, at least, Voltz and Grobe have returned to their quasi-scientific roots. (Voltz is a former trial lawyer from Boston; Grobe abandoned studying mathematics at Yale to become a professional juggler.) With it's unwieldy battery of PVC pipe, 108 bottles of Coke Zero and 648 Mentos, their rocket car may appear to be a disappointingly Rube Goldberg contraption to anyone who had hopes that the inventors might have been on the path to solving the world's energy crisis, and more disappointing still for its recorded distance: 221 feet.

But then again, on their first flight at Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers didn't do any better. Total distance: 120 feet.

Filed Under: Science
Tags: diet coke, eepybird, fritz grobe, mentos, mentos and diet coke guys, stephen voltz

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-01-2010 @9:07PM Bud Maxwell said... Watch out Penn & Teller, these guys are really going to the moon! LOL
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6-02-2010 @5:18AM zap said... A Little More Expensive than A Gallon Of Gas, But Cool To Watch.

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6-02-2010 @1:13AM Walter said... So what, When I was a kid, I had a car that ran on peanut butter, hambuger, Quaker Crisps and Chocks plus iron. It seem fitting that the Chocks market was taken over by Flintston's vitamins
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6-01-2010 @10:04PM nick said... lol that is the place were he 2008 knight rider series was filmed, you no part when when car drives back.
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6-01-2010 @11:20PM Pamela said... Now THIS is America....even the CARS are addicted to candy and diet soda!!
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6-01-2010 @11:35PM virgil said... Don't lose the Coke, recycle it back in and add automatic dropper for Mentos or liquid Mentos.
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6-02-2010 @10:03PM robert said... everything works right when you show a pack of mentos.
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6-02-2010 @12:41AM what said... They should rig up the contraption to blast the fizz through a turbine that turns the wheels. It could be controllable and would go a lot further. They could even have a containment system so that the spent fizz doesn't get all over and make a nasty mess.
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6-02-2010 @1:14AM Digi said... I love how people use intelligence to create and design such things that are of NO practical use or anything more than a novelty joke. While perhaps 'nifty' i see this as a complete waste of resources, time and well to some extent brain ability. If only people would find solutions to actual problems instead of trying to find a way to operate a vehicle using something NO one would try or use at home. ......If people would use that talent for things like designing a car that doesnt use fossil fuels and isnt a bomb would be nice. or perhaps invention of something more practical, like a cheap, renusable fuel source that can be immediatly incorperated into everyday life without the necessity of having to re-engineer common devices.

Just seems like a huge waste to me.
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6-02-2010 @6:36AM jake said... Lighten up.

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6-02-2010 @1:28AM Jerry said... Why not join the Coke\Mentos expansion to a recipicating cylinder, piston, rod and crank shaft assemblage that is slaved to one of the wheels?
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6-02-2010 @1:59AM Jerry said... Digi,
While I might be a nerd, you, my friend, are a dork. Such a catagorization is unforgivable in a thinking social environment.
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6-02-2010 @7:00AM Digi said... Jerry, I have a different name for you other than nerd. But seeing how Im not trying to troll post I will refrain from using it. However, perhaps a dink like yourself might be able to take a grand look at the greater picture. While losers like yourself find such ....activities like this 'entertaining' (im sure you watch the show Jackass as well), its ultimately a complete waste of time, energy and materials. Sure its just soda and candy. So then lets justify blantant ilresponsibility and lack of productivity in the name of entertainment.

I sure hope some day you get to experience how thanks to the ...people like yourself who pride yourself on entertainment over sensibility, just what a complete....well tool you are.