![]() ![]() In the next section, learn how Oldsmobile's team of engineers developed the Jetfire's turbocharger. (Historically, then, the Jetfire is the first volume-production turbo car in America.) Anticipating a lack of understanding of turbos, Olds used the special Jetfire promotional folder to teach as much as to sell a cutaway drawing explained the flow of intake and exhaust gases and a Q-and-A section tackled questions a prospective buyer might raise about the turbocharger's operation.Ī month or so after the Jetfire's debut, Chevrolet launched the Monza Spyder with a turbo version of the Corvair's air-cooled flat six, also generating one horsepower per cubic inch. If turbochargers presented a bigger mystery to American enthusiasts in 1962, at least they would get a crash course in them. In the U.S., makes such as Cord, Duesenberg, and Graham also used "blowers" prior to World War II, and several others resorted to them in the 1950s. After proving their worth in the Great War, turbocharged engines saw extensive use on World War II fighter planes.īentley and Bugatti made early use of superchargers in cars. In high-altitude testing, it showed a dramatic power boost. Sanford Moss, later named "father of the turbocharger," put a GE turbo on a V-12 Liberty aircraft engine. companies were working on turbos for aircraft. In 1905, according to Canadian historian Bill Vance, a Swiss engineer named Alfred Buchi patented an exhaust-driven supercharger for use on diesel engines.Īs World War I brewed, General Electric and other U.S. Its history dates back to the early twentieth century. This process boosts air pressure and forcefully feeds the fuel-air mixture into the engine for better combustion. Meanwhile, the other impeller draws in air, sending it via centrifugal force into the intake manifold. As exhaust pressure is directed against one impeller, it begins to spin. ![]() Essentially, a turbocharger is a shaft with turbine impellers at each end. So does a supercharger, albeit via a different power source. For more information on cars, see:Ī turbocharger boosts the strength of the air-fuel mixture as a way to get more power out of a given engine without increasing its size. Get more details on the Jetfire's turbocharger in the next section of this article. In stock form, it produced 155 bhp an optional version with four-barrel carburetion and 10.25:1 compression yielded 185 bhp. Related to the Buick Special and Pontiac Tempest, it was equipped with an all-aluminum, 215-cid "Rockette" V-8, a GM Engineering design refined for production by Buick and Oldsmobile engineers. The platform for this powerplant was Oldsmobile's unibodied F-85, introduced for 1961 as one of GM's upscale "senior" compacts (though billed as "intermediate" in size, on a 112-inch wheelbase). Oldsmobile's solution was a light, small V-8 fitted with a turbocharger to give it the performance of a heavier, larger-displacement engine. automakers decided to wade into the compact market, some of them wanted to make cars to court the latter group of customers. Others, though, discovered a nimble sporting, "fun-to-drive " character that just couldn't be had with 18 feet of fins and chrome. Some admired these cars purely for their economy. Throughout the 1950s, a growing number of American motorists had drifted over to a host of small cars, most of them European. Both were at the leading edge of the swing toward driving ease and abundant power that arose in the 1950s and showed no signs of abating anytime soon.īut there was an undercurrent that ran counter to the trend. Olds had won a reputation for itself at General Motors by leading the way in engineering breakthroughs, such as Hydra-Matric automatic transmission, first seen on the 1940 models, and the modern high compression Rocket ohv V-8 engine that debuted in 1949. True to its history, it would do so by turning to some advanced technology. Oldsmobile would be among the carmakers that tried to reconcile these seemingly different friends. Just as breakers rise separately from the same ocean, these two forceful waves - each with an energy of its own - could still flow together.
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