If they could come back to life, early innovators of the automotive aftermarket wouldn’t recognize what they created. Things have changed dramatically over the past 100 plus years, but one thing has stayed the same – really smart people are doing really creative things and solving really difficult problems in this industry.
There’s a lot of talk about brand new technology rocking the automotive industry and we cover these topics regularly in the pages of ImportCar – but they may not really be as revolutionary as we sometimes believe.
Fuel injection seems to be new and exciting, having finally replaced all of the temperamental carburetors used up through the 1990s. Actually, the technology dates back to the early 1900s and by 1907, there were experimental fuel-injected cars running – admittedly, many of those were two-stroke, alcohol-powered engines designed to address the troubling issue of pre-ignition. And, let’s be honest – there’s still a lot of carburetors in use.
The first variable valve timing systems came into use in the nineteenth century on steam engines and found their way into pre-World War II aircraft engines, including the Lycoming R-7755 engine, with a two-cam VVT system allowing the pilot to choose between take off, pursuit and escape or economical cruising.
Fiat patented a functional automotive VVT in the late 1960s and GM dabbled in the technology 1975 but abandoned it after running into problems running at very low lift. Alfa Romeo offered the first mechanical variable valve timing system in production cars in the 1980 Alfa Romeo Spider 2.0L.
Even some of today’s most cutting-edge technologies like those found in hybrids date back to the early days of automotive history. Electric taxis in London were known as “Hummingbirds;” the 1900 Elektromobile System Lohner-Porsche Mixte was a successful gas-electric from vehicle in Germany; and the Baker from Cleveland and the Edison Electric Car from Detroit show that the world was discovering electricity long before today.
Of course, building on the foundations of our history is what continues to make this an exciting industry. I think there’s plenty opportunity to keep techs learning something new – or old – for a long time to come.