The Fastest Car on Earth (Part 1)

 is the twentieth episode of Speed Racer. It first aired in Japan on August 13, 1967 on Fuji TV.

Plot
At midnight in the Spook Cemetery, an infamously powerful racing car engine known as the GRX was exhumed from the grave of its creator, Ben Cranem, by Oriana Flub and her minions. After acquiring the engine, they drove off into the night.

The next day, Speed and Pops finishes up a time trial session on the Mach 5 in preparation for the Grand Prix of the Orient. As it turned out, their lap time (2:06) is the third-fastest on record, which for Pops wasn't fast enough, telling Speed that he'll have to shave it by half a second. Speed responds that they were pushing the limits of the Mach 5, while Pops retorts that it may be the way that Speed is driving it. Speed argues back that maybe Pops should have built a little more power into the car. He then goes to take a lunch break, with Pops rolling his eyes on how his son thought about beating the record.

Joined by Trixie, Speed opens his basket, only to find it empty to his bewilderment. She then deduces that Spritle has been "at it again". Sure enough, the scene cuts to Spritle and Chim-Chim enjoying Speed's lunch. After taking a bite of his brother's hot dog, Spritle began drinking his beverage. While he is distracted, Chim-Chim takes the sausage out of the bun and eats it. Sprite pursues Chim-Chim, who is then lured to the back of a strange truck with links of hot dogs. Just as the doors of the truck were closing, Spritle finds Chim-Chim and jumps in with him. The two are then taken to Oriana Flub's estate, where Chim-Chim is used as a test subject. The chimp is tied to a go-kart and forced to drive it around a test track. After one lap, Chim-Chim is then sprayed with an unusual formula by Jim on Oriana's orders, causing him to lose his fearfulness, as he then began driving the go-kart at full speed. Later, Spritle rescues Chim-Chim and escape the estate, but not before the latter knocked Oriana's pit bull out cold with a large rock.

At the track the next day, Pops reminds Speed that he's got three days until the Oriental Grand Prix and has to shave half a second off of his lap time before then. The latter remarks that the Mach 5's acceleration seemed a bit slow when he pressed down on the pedal, though Pops retorts that there isn't anything wrong with the RPM's that the car is putting out and that it is how the car normally responds. That is, until Pops, Speed, Sparky and Trixie notice the sudden appearance of a sleek, golden racing car on the track.

Hearing the sound of the new car's engine idling, Pops realized that something is familiar about it, as Oriana signaled from the stands to her henchman, Jim, to give the car's driver the formula. While that is going on, a young man named Curly also shows up, also noting that the engine sounded familiar, as Pops asked him if they had met before, to which the former said that they hadn't.

The golden racing car than began its time trial around the track at blistering speeds, as Pops then realized that its engine is the GRX. As the car finished its lap and the drive deploying a drag chute to slow it down to a stop, Sparky found (to his surprise) that the car's lap time is 15 seconds faster than the Mach 5's. Curious, he Speed and Trixie were starting to go over to the car to see who the driver is, when Pops warned them against it, claiming that there's something "supernatural" about the car. When Sparky remarks to Pops about how he seems to be familiar with that car, the latter replied that he didn't before advising against even going near the car. Sprite and Chim-Chim show up, as the former points Pops out to Jim, who the youngest Racer brother recognized as the thug who "gave them a terrible time".

Seeking to confirm his suspicions, Pops takes Sprite and Chim-Chim with him to the Spook Cemetery. There, the three soon found that the tomb of Ben Cranem had been disturbed, indicating that the GRX engine is no longer in it. They soon come upon Oriana's estate, where Pops goes inside to confront her about the GRX, asking her to hand it over to him so that he could destroy it like he should have done. At this, Oriana's thugs get into a fight with him. Just when Pops had the upper hand, she weakens him with a sleeper gun. While that is happening, a curiosity-driven Speed, accompanied by Sparky and Trixie, follows the car with the intent of finding out more about it. Driving the Mach 5 close enough to the flatbed truck carrying it, Speed jumps onto it as he had Trixie take the wheel. On the truck, which is driven by Jim, Speed witnesses the test driver take some water out of desperate thirst, as the latter then develops a strange fear of speed. Back at Oriana's estate, Spritle and Chim-Chim waited for Pops to come out, as they then witnessed the truck carrying the GRX (and Speed) go into a garage.

Hiding behind some oil drums, Speed witnesses Jim take the test driver to get some rest, not noticing that Curly is also there. Meanwhile, Pops is overwhelmed by Oriana's thugs, as she herself then challenged him to report to the police that they have the GRX. However, he retorts that nobody understands how dangerous the engine is, intending to protect the racing drivers even going as far as to risk his life. Figuring that Pops doesn't believe that there's not a racing driver alive who could safely operate the GRX, she asks him this as he replied that at the engine's tremendous speeds, it could power a car that nobody would have the reflexes to keep from crashing. Intending to prove Pops wrong, Oriana brings in the test driver, who then collapsed onto the floor in fear, not wanting to drive fast.

Meanwhile, Speed decides to investigate the car so that he could figure out a way to defeat it. He pops open the hood and looked inside, to find that it is powered by the GRX. He is then confronted by Curly as a brawl between the two occurred. Pops is then tied up by Jim, who leaves him in the room until they could find a way to "get rid of him permanently". However, Spritle and Chim-Chim sneak into the room to save Pops. Defeating Curly and knocking him out, Speed gives in to the temptation of driving the GRX as he gets into the driver's seat and starts up the car. As Pops, Spritle and Chim-Chim snuck out of the mansion, they witness Speed driving off in the GRX, with Oriana's minions in pursuit. They hi-jack one of the thugs' cars, so that they could pursue and try to stop Speed. As he himself began to travel faster, Speed became thrilled, before the road began to blur in front of him, causing him to believe that he is being taken into another dimension that is reached only by speed. He then loses consciousness at the wheel, as the GRX began to slow down with Pops tearfully remarking that it is going to "be the end of [Speed]".

Regional Differences

 * In the original Japanese version, Speed's lap time in the second scene is 2 minutes 7 seconds rather than 2 minutes 6 seconds in the English dub.
 * The Oriental Grand Prix is referred to in the Japanese version as the Toyo Grand Prix.
 * Jim is never named in the English dub
 * V-Gas is known in the Japanese version as LDD, presumably as a pun on LSD, an illegal hallucinogenic drug.
 * Takeshi Fujimi, the first driver of the GRX in the two-parter, was never given a name for the English dub. However, in part 2, he is named Louis Towcar.
 * The Spook Cemetery is known in the Japanese version as the Kitanodai Cemetery.
 * Oriana's facility is known in the Japanese version as Hanada Labs.
 * In the Japanese version, the car powered by the GRX is initially named "Car X", but in part 2, it is named "Great Kuron". However, in the English dub, it is just simply referred to as the GRX, after the engine.
 * Ben Cranem is named Ohara in the Japanese version.

Continunity Errors

 * The episode title in the English dubbing of the series marked a continuity error. In the first part, the car reached a speed of 300 km/h (186.411 mph) on it is shown on the speedometer in the beginning of the episode, however, due to a continuity error in the Japanese animation, the car goes in excess of 340 km/h (211.266 mph) when Speed drove it the first time. This would make the GRX slower than the Mammoth Car (whose top speed is 500+ mph) in terms of the dialogue.
 * Along with that, when Speed said in part 2 that it is almost as fast as the speed of sound, this is also a misnomer, as 1 unit in the speed of sound is equivalent to 767.269 mph. Speed would surpass that in Supersonic Car with none of the effect experianced with the GRX.
 * In part 1 of the episode, the speedometer is depicted as maxing out at 400 km/h (248.548 mph), but at the beginning of part 2, it tops at 440 km/h (273.403 mph).
 * The position of the "GRX" on the engine changes. In one scene it is molded into the side of the engine but in anther it is simply black letters on the front of the engine. Episode 2 shows the GRX is molded on the side of the engine in one scene but then another scene shows a different looking engine with the name "GR-X" molded into it.

Cast

 * Peter Fernandez: Speed Racer
 * Corinne Orr: Trixie, Spritle Racer, Mom Racer
 * Jack Grimes: Sparky, Chim Chim
 * Jack Curtis: Pops Racer

Characters
Note: All characters are listed in order of their first appearances in the episode. The time they appear is the time from the Japanese dub.

Episode
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