Stan Meyer's water car and the solar races

Stan Meyer spent years trying to put a water-powered car in a solar race. First a sponsor for Australia's solar race sent a contract that was really a bill of sale for his dune buggy. For the November 1990 World Solar Challenge he readied the buggy himself, as car number 24, with a solar panel to charge the starting battery and water to run the engine; by one account it wasn't ready in time. In July 1994 the buggy was billed at SEER '94, the Solar Energy Expo and Rally run by the Renewable Energy Development Institute of Willits, California, once known as the solar capital of the world, held that year at the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds in Ukiah. Six master tapes of that weekend exist, labelled "Stan Meyer master copy". We have never found a frame of them online. We're looking for any footage of SEER '94 in Ukiah, 15 to 17 July 1994: home video, local TV news, photographs, anything. Were you there? Comment or message us.

About the voices. The narrator is NeuralStan, an AI voice the archive uses for its made films. Where you hear Stan Meyer, it is Stan: every word of his is cut from an original recording, and nothing he says was synthesised.

Sources

• Stan Meyer · house meeting, New Zealand · 1989
• The Ukiah SEER '94 master tapes · photograph supplied to the archive
• The Grove City Record, 13 Sept 1990 · photo by Marcia Thompson
• The Grove City Record, 13 Sept 1990 · photo by Marcia Thompson
• The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa · 14 July 1994
• The Ukiah Daily Journal · 13 July 1994
• Stan Meyer, house meeting, New Zealand, 1989, part 4, at 11:14 — stanslegacy.com
• Marcia Thompson, "Mid-East crisis lends urgency to development of Water Fuel Cell", The Grove City Record, 13 September 1990 (photos by Marcia Thompson) — stanslegacy.com
• "Fill the tank with water", The Ukiah Daily Journal, 13 July 1994, pp. 11-12 — stanslegacy.com
• "Solar power", The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, 14 July 1994, p. 27
• The VHS shelf: the six Ukiah SEER '94 master tapes — stanslegacy.com
• Willits as "the solar capital of the world": visitwillits.com/willits-history