This article is about a low volume car manufacturer that survived by manufacturing military vehicles and aircraft engines. T.G. John founded a company in his name in 1919 as a supplier of engines and scooter style motorised bikes. He set up his company in Coventry in the UK, which was at the heart of the British industry. The following year John used a new four cylinder engine … [Read more...]
Overdrive
The concept of “overdrive” has been around for decades and in theory is the ability of the car to use a gear ratio that allows the engine to be running at a lower rpm to that of the road speed which in turn means fuel savings when cruising at motorway speeds, for example, and therefore lower engine wear and noise. Mechanically, the overdrive unit is a secondary gearbox that … [Read more...]
Transverse Engines
This week’s technical article is about the transverse engine – found in most modern front drive cars and it follows on from a recent article about DKW. DKW were the first to have a successful transverse engine in a production car. It helped that their engine was a tiny two stroke, two cylinder motor derived from a motorcycle engine. This was in the 1930s and they were very … [Read more...]
Innocenti
This weeks history article is about Innocenti who built cars under licence and were the makers of the famous Lambretta scooter. Ferdinando Innocenti set up his company in 1922 to make steel tubing. During the Second World War, his factory was flattened in a bombing raid. After the war, in an attempt to rebuild his company, Innocenti saw a market for a cheap transport method … [Read more...]
Triumph Cars
The Triumph name has been around for over a century and today it is only seen on motorbikes; however they have produced bicycles and cars, notably a range of sports cars. Triumph was originally founded in 1886 in Coventry by Siegfried Bettmann who had emigrated from Germany two years earlier and had set up an importation company bringing in bicycles and other items from … [Read more...]