The History of 100HP

It was the Romans who originally harnessed the idea that the perfect amount of power was 100 HP. You may see them in movies with 2 to 4 horses on their chariots but in reality they typically used 100.

They had essentially trials competitions with their charriots and drag races in which they would use 100 horses. At the fall of rome it would be a long time before someone would attempt to harness the power of the horse again.

The most recent dates we have are back to the 1880s when people were increasing the power of their wagons. The Oregon trail was tough and you really needed a lot of horse power to pull through. In these pictures you can see some horse powered wagons.

Many attempted to continue to push the limit as to how many horses they could use to pull a wagon around. Back then, the best way to increase horsepower was to simply physically add a horse. There were logistics though in how to hook them up and control them from so far back. So it's not quite as simply as just adding a new horse, you had to go to a speialized tuner. Edwin Grog was one of the famous wagon horse tuners and many bought his book.

Below is a further collection of photos of some attempts at big horse power wagons. Some of these were able to go over 100MPH with all of those horses attached. There was a famous racer who had a souped up wagon with 100 horses, Jim Deek and he died in a wagon crash going over 100 MPH on his 100 horse pulled wagon.

Sometimes people attempted to make them lighter. Removing a rib from each horse or their teeth or cut off all their hair. Even though they have 100 HP, they still have tons of weight to pull.

In some of the Chariot Trials competitions they would add metal plates for protection under the horses so the wouldn't get broken bones from rocks being throw or going over boulders.

Some weird people would put different colored wraps around the horse's legs. You'd see blue legs or purple, it was just ridiculous.

Unfortunately, if your horse breaks down and you start to loose horse power a lot of the parts are obslete and you just can't find them anymore.