Factoid of the Month: The Engine of the Future
How accurate were predictions of 50 years ago about what would power the car of the future? The answer is: not very. An article in the Summer 1962 issue of Automobile Quarterly magazine predicted the dominant motive power in the future would be the gas turbine engine. – It also predicted the internal combustion engine would be less popular but still be around. The article went on to describe a revolutionary new design by U.S. Steel for an engine made primarily of stainless and carbon steel stampings (because you know the folks at U.S. Steel wouldn’t design an engine made out of aluminum or soybeans). It is hard to picture this, but the block and cylinders would be stamped from stainless steel and the connecting rods would be stamped from carbon steel. – This stamped steel engine was never produced. Possibly people still remembered all the problems Powel Crosley, Jr, had a few years before with the COBRA (copper brazed) block made from stamped steel sheets in his little car. What was Mr. Crosley’s solution to his engine problems? A cast iron block.

August, 2013