The original forerunner to the vehicle was the "SMI Motivator" which was damaged badly enough to require a replacement, which in time was called the "Budweiser Rocket".

[2][3] The vehicle, like its predecessor, was owned by film director Hal Needham,[4] driven by Stan Barrett and designed and built by William Fredrick (Died in 2020).

[6] The original Budweiser Rocket was donated to the Smithsonian Institution and a modified version with a narrower track, is in the Talladega Superspeedway Museum, Alabama.

[9] The claim of breaking the sound barrier on land was made on December 17, 1979 after a run on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards AFB.

[11][12] No independent authority sanctioned the performance, although United States Air Force radar tracked the vehicle and recorded the azimuth, elevation, timing, and range data from which a top speed solution was calculated.

[14] It is claimed that no-one heard the boom because of the short distance between the observers and the deafening sonic waves from the combined liquid and solid-fuel rockets used to propel the vehicle.