Maine duo builds car powered by Mentos and soda

Mainers Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, who achieved Internet celebrity status in 2006 with their impressive Mentos-and-Diet-Coke fountains, now seek to harness the sweet combination's explosive power to propel an automobile.

The guys from Maine who became online celebrities by creating geysers from Mentos candies and Diet Coke say they have harnessed that power to create a "rocket car."

The contraption created by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz of Buckfield features a utility trailer on the back and a modified girl's bike at the front. Grobe, the test pilot, says it's powered by piston mechanism using hundreds of pieces of Mentos candy and plastic Coke Zero bottles instead of Diet Coke.

"It's pretty frightening to have captured the power of 108 bottles of Coke Zero and 648 Mentos," Grobe said Friday. "Our thoroughly unscientic measurements suggest it goes 18 to 20 mph when it comes out of gate."

Grobe and Voltz are offering a teaser of their invention on their website. The full video directed by Rob Cohen of "The Fast and the Furious" in California will debut online Tuesday.

Grobe joked that they're calling it "The Fizzy and the Furious."

The two, dressed in lab coats and goggles, became Internet celebrities four years ago with their "experiments" that created geysers by dropping Mentos candies into bottles of Diet Coke. They say they prefer Diet Coke and Coke Zero because they seem to have more carbonation. Also, they're less sticky.

The pair have traveled the world showing off their geysers, which are often set to music.

And they insist they're not a one-geyser hit.

"We continue to spend countless hours tinkering with ordinary objects trying to find the extraordinary thigns they can do. So we have a few more surprises up our sleeves," Grobe said.