From what the article claims, rediscovering their principles would produce a car with much better noise characteristics than turbines and modern ICEs. I wonder what modern metallurgy could do for the design? The part count is extremely low. With remote control from a smartphone, the big disadvantage -- boiler start time -- would be entirely solved. As it was, they had gotten it down to something comparable to starting diesel cars on a cold day.

Boiler startup was essentially solved by Doble 80 years ago. The steam generator (Sort of a JIT for steam) could produce useable pressure in less than a minute.

Like I said: Comparable to an old diesel. That kind of delay still got massive hate from my ex-girlfriend. However, if you give people a remote to have it done by the time they get down to the car, they'd feel it was nifty technology and it would make them feel powerful.

Could probably tie it into the keyless entry.

Could you use something like an RTG to heat the water? That way, you wouldn't have to have an actual nuclear reaction.

Something like an RTG would make sense. An actual, plutonium-based RTG wouldn't.