In pursuit of engine excellence 1920/30's.

[moffspeed]

I've always been a motorsport-orientated petrolhead but most of the pre-war stuff has been of little interest to me over the years. My main focus has always been on the 60/70's era because that it when I developed spots, graduated from short to long trousers and discovered Brut 33.

Maybe its an age thing but recently I've been focussing on the pre-war era. Great books such as DSJ's AFN (Frazer Nash) story and Quentin Spurring's 2 volumes on the pre-war decades at Le Mans.

What has struck me is the avalanche of (engine) technological advances that were being forged during the 20/30's. OHC (often twin), forced induction, alloy blocks, hemi heads, fancy multi carb set ups, 4V per cylinder, desmodromic valves etc etc.

OK this was largely competition car technology & some of it carried over post-war in the more exotic offerings but your average mass produced car laboured on post war with a pushrod, 2V per cylinder head, cast iron boat anchor until things livened up in the 1980's.

Purely down to economics ?

[Turbobanana]

moffspeed said:

Purely down to economics ?

Possibly.

Align technological innovation to Kondratiev Waves (K-Waves) and your timescale fits with the 40-60 year cycles proposed in this theory.

Basically, new technology is introduced (in this case, the car). Development takes place rapidly over the next couple of decades, after which it starts to stagnate a little. Then something comes along that kickstarts it all over again. In your 1980s example that could be the advent of efficient fuel injection, economic prosperity encouraging widespread car ownership or the increase in models offered by manufacturers to fill (or indeed create) a niche market.

Rinse and repeat: 40 years on from the early 1980s we now have the explosion of EVs (pun fully intended), driverless cars etc.

[niva441]

Also increasing legislation, creating more incentive to improve emissions (or better at passing tests) and efficiency.

[Peter3442]

Another factor would be the availability of high octane, leaded gasoline. With improved fuel and the resultant possibility of higher compression ratios, it became worthwhile to make use of the advances in engine design.

[Truckosaurus]

moffspeed said:

Purely down to economics ?

Also, War.

You'll have some advances made during WW1 which are picked up by civilian engineering in the 20s.

I believe the Germans in that period were getting around their Versailles Treaty restrictions by using motorsport as a testbed for technologies that could also be useful for military purposes.

[courty]

Alfa Romeo and Lancia carried a certain amount of race tech into their mass produced cars from the 1950's onwards. In the UK, Jaguar had some good engine offerings post-war. On the other hand, pre-war beauties like Riley, which had some gorgeous vehicles, the 1930's Kestrel 14/6 with straight six alloy overhead cams and pre-selector gearboxes for example, I think were amalgamated into BMC, and so cast iron and mallets it was going forward into mass production unfortunately. Even Issigonis with the post war Morris Minor (Mosquito project) designed in a new flat 4 engine and independant suspension all round, but of course, the pre-war wheezy side valve from the Morris 8 and cart springs were to hand for Lord Nuffield, who hated the "poached egg" design anyway.

[Rumdoodle]

Truckosaurus said:

moffspeed said:

Purely down to economics ?

Also, War.

You'll have some advances made during WW1 which are picked up by civilian engineering in the 20s.

I believe the Germans in that period were getting around their Versailles Treaty restrictions by using motorsport as a testbed for technologies that could also be useful for military purposes.

The German Grand Prix cars were producing over 500bhp in the late '30s. Phenomenal stuff!

[williamp]

the first cars were exploring everything Loads of things didnt work, some did. Over time these were refined and developed.#

It was very hard to produce engines (well, anything) to a decent tolerance. Oils weren't very good, spark plugs were poor, bad fuel too.

I remember years ago reading an article from when Crosthwaite and Gardner rebuilt the pre-war Auto Unions GP cars (when the Iron curtain fell and people conned their owners into selling them and made a mint. But hey, Capitalism!!)

They coudnt get the head to seal- if they tightened it down enough to make the seal, it would crask. So they sent off a piece of the original alloy to British steel for analysis.

The report can back identifying the metal and said something like "suggested uses: garden furniture"!!

[Rumdoodle]

williamp said:

the first cars were exploring everything Loads of things didnt work, some did. Over time these were refined and developed.#

It was very hard to produce engines (well, anything) to a decent tolerance. Oils weren't very good, spark plugs were poor, bad fuel too.

I remember years ago reading an article from when Crosthwaite and Gardner rebuilt the pre-war Auto Unions GP cars (when the Iron curtain fell and people conned their owners into selling them and made a mint. But hey, Capitalism!!)

They coudnt get the head to seal- if they tightened it down enough to make the seal, it would crask. So they sent off a piece of the original alloy to British steel for analysis.

The report can back identifying the metal and said something like "suggested uses: garden furniture"!!

That's a little unfair. If there was any prospect that the cars would be worth tens of millons now, the likes of Colin Crabbe and the Karassiks would have found themselves competing with a lot more bidders. Their efforts to retrieve and rebuild, and race (!), these cars are thoroughly commendable. Crabbe and Neil Corner used to race these things in club meetings at British racetracks. Now, they're on a fking plinth at Goodwood. (The cars, not the people.)