James Dean had a 550 Spyder, but I never knew just how ingenious those motors were! Apparently the 550 had alot more aluminum in the motor then just the head. Holly molly Porsche!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_550
I’ve read a very intresting book written by the old chief engineer of FIAT Dante Giacosa (also the “father” of the fiat 500). He was talking about the war era and how FIAT were developing a full small aluminium engine to build via “shell” casting (easier and cheaper compared to others same era system - don’t know if it is the right term in english too) to start to build after the end of the war.
I don’t remember how it ends, if the projects were lost or became obsolete before the end of the war. I’m very curious about this project and unfortunatley it’s very difficult to find info about it.
FIAT was a great company in the past.
Wasn’t the VW Beetle engine from the beginning; Aluminium heads, Cast iron cylinders and Magnesium block?
Or was it the later ones (after the war) that had Alu heads?
I think they had an alloy with magnesium content in the block, but not a magnesium block.
the VW beetle, Wow… okay I’ve got nothing for that, that’s just crazy, maybe it should be a bit earlier.
Crazy, right? Who would expect the Beetle to have advanced engine materials?
Aluminium is not “so” advanced. During the WWII era there was rationing for a lot of civilian commodities, steel for cars too. It’s not so strange to see “advanced” (maybe autarky?) alloys at the era…
One of the best (strongest) aluminium alloy is the one called 7075, not good for casting or welding, but is very good for milling. It was invented by the Japanese late 1930s. It’s still the strongest ,easy available, alloy. 80+ years after introduced.
Sometimes we seems to think that everything advanced has to be new. Duesenberg has DOHC 4-valve heads 1928.(cast iron)
Early 1940s, Ford (US) designed an all-aluminium v-12 aero engine, same size as RR Merlin, DOHC (direct acting) 48v with center spark plug. It took them until 1993 to make an engine for cars whith those features.
But still… magnesium.
Volkswagen could use magnesium back then because the beetle have a boxer engine where the cylinders are bolted to the crankcase, so the crankcase only has to be the attachment point for the cylinders and hold the cam and crankshaft. So the crankcase sees fairly low stress.
Still they figured out how to accommodate the thermal expansion of 4 different alloys, in the 50’s, and there are still bugs running today. Pretty freaking cool.