This weeks history article is about Lanchester, one of Britain’s first car companies, in fact it was founded as the motor industry was snowballing as many companies had sprung up to satisfy initial demand for motor vehicles. Their first claim to fame was that they built the very first British motor car in 1895 - a few years before the company was formed. The Lanchester … [Read more...]
Ford Cosworth V8
Some months ago, I wrote about Cosworth in a history article as the company was instrumental in developing technology for road and race cars. This week’s article explores arguably their most famous product – the DFV engine. I have also written about the Repco 620 V8 that won several Formula 1 championships in the mid 1960s. Cosworth were a major competitor to Repco, Honda and … [Read more...]
Ford Windsor V8 Engine
Ford’s Windsor series of V8 motors were fitted to cars from 1962 right through to about 2001. They were built in Cleveland, Ohio and Windsor, Ontario where they got their name from. The engines were 90° small block V8’s with overhead valves – 2 per cylinder. The term small block refers to engines less than 6 litres. The Windsor replaced the Ford Y-Block V8 that was developed … [Read more...]
Nikolaus Otto
Nikolaus Otto is an engineer who probably did more to get the industry moving than anyone during the early days. Otto’s claim to fame is the Otto Cycle that the majority of internal combustion engines use as the process to create power. Otto was born in the Rhineland, Germany in 1832 the same year his father died. He did the usual schooling for the time and although he … [Read more...]
Leaded Petrol
Today, every car sold on the market that has a petrol engine uses unleaded fuel. That wasn’t always the case - leaded fuel was available for about 50 years and for a purpose. Refined fuel, namely petrol, has a habit of auto-igniting, i.e the ability to detonate on it’s own without a spark and this meant that cars up to the 1920s could run roughly as the fuel ignited at the … [Read more...]