A History of Turbocharging

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The turbocharger is a turbine driven by the exhaust gases of your vehicle. Airs enters the turbocharger, magic happens and the engine’s performance is amplified. It delivers compressed air to the combustion chamber for massive horsepower and torque gains while giving that satisfying ‘pfft’ sound that is music to a car enthusiast’s ears. Of course, you probably want one under the hood of your ride, all your car enthusiast friends will not stop talking about them and your grandma’s Honda N-Wgn probably has one too. However, what was exclusively a performance upgrade is now also a staple for greatly boosting engine efficiency. Miles per gallons and smiles per gallon? Now this is certainly an offer that no car guy or girl can refuse. So, how exactly did the art of turbocharging become massively popular? For that, we will have to take a dive into the history of turbocharging.

Gottlieb Daimler and Rudolf Diesel developed the concept of turbocharging in the late 19th century to boost engine performance. The very first exhaust-driven turbocharger patent was filed in 1905 for a marine engine. This was?patented by Alfred Buchi, who was a Swiss mechanical engineer. The world’s first turbo set-up was not installed in a car or a sea vessel at all. On the contrary, the technology debuted for aircrafts. Sanford Alexander Moss installed the very first turbocharger on a Liberty V12 aircraft engine. Soon, American aviation followed up by installing turbos on their own airplanes. As is the case with turbochargers, this new generation of boosted aircraft could reach new heights without suffering an enormous drop in engine performance due to far less air density at high altitudes.

As surprising as this sounds, trucks were installed with turbochargers long before production cars would receive them. Swiss truck manufacturer Adolph Saurer AG offered an optional turbo for their trucks way back in 1938. The first turbo systems would appear in cars in the 1960s with the Chevrolet Corvair and the Oldsmobile Jetfire. Not only did the first turbo setups in cars lack an intercooler, but they also failed to sell the whole turbocharging gimmick to the public at large. Suffering from extremely high temperatures and sometimes poor build quality, the very first turbo systems in cars were highly inefficient compared to the turbo systems of, say, the 1980s.

The Chevrolet Corvair was very well received among car enthusiasts, despite the car’s handling issues. Motor Trend gave the Car of the Year award to the 1960 Corvair. That’s not all, the 1964 issue of Car and Driver described the 1965 Chevrolet Corvair as an “outstanding car”. The Corvair’s engine even received upgraded camshafts, connecting rods and main bearings along with multiple durable components to tolerate the boost pressure generated by the turbo. Here, the turbo boost was only limited to 10 psi (0.69 bar). However, the car’s engine found a lot of success in the hotrodding scene and was even favoured for powering small aircrafts. Many Chevrolet Corvairs were raced as well. Sadly, GM had to end production for their only RR (rear engine, rear wheel drive) car in 1969 after sales plummeted. Instead, GM decided to dedicate its resources to the development of the Chevrolet Camaro. The Ford Mustang was already making headlines and GM certainly did not want to miss out on the action. While the Corvair was a fun car, but it simply was not fast enough to keep up with the Mustang. Of course, any further upgrades to the Corvair on Chevrolet’s end were not economically viable. Thus, they went full throttle with the Camaro, leading to a friendly rivalry that has lasted over half a century.

Around the same time as the Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder, the Oldsmobile Jetfire was released in 1962. As mentioned earlier, this was the other turbocharged bundle of joy on four wheels. Oldsmobile reached out to Garrett to make turbochargers for the Jetfire. At the time, Garett specialised in industrial grade turbochargers, so their turbos could not simply fit on any ordinary engine unlike today. The Jetfire was powered by a 3.5 litre (215 ci) V8 that received the turbo. In this era, big was always better for car engines. Many high-end models easily displaced 7 litres of gasoline back in those days like they had no tomato soup flinging activists to offend. Therefore, a smaller engine that was supposed to compete with motors twice its size certainly got the spotlight, especially given that this was a first for turbocharging in cars.

Much like the Corvair, the Jetfire also lacked an intercooler. On the other hand, in order to compensate for the lack of an intercooler, Oldsmobile installed a water/methanol injection system backed up with failsafe. The failsafe would put the car into a low-power mode in case the water/methanol mixture ran too low. Interestingly enough, this mixture was referred to as ‘rocket fluid’ by Oldsmobile. The 1960s was also known as the ‘Space Age’. It was marked by multiple breakthroughs in aviation and space travel. Therefore, the naming scheme of Oldsmobile’s products was certainly on point.

(Credits: Street Muscle Magazine)

How did the Oldsmobile Jetfire fare? Well, many frustrated owners took their Jetfires to their respective Oldsmobile dealerships, complaining of low power. What could the issue possibly be? Oh, that’s right, many owners failed to go through their owner’s manual and skipped out on refilling the ‘rocket fluid’ for their cars. Thus, leading to the cars to switch to a ‘low power mode’. Of course, refilling the ‘rocket fluid’ each time proved to be too much hard work and turned many aspiring owners away from the car. God bless America.

What next? Oldsmobile quickly retired the turbocharger on their Jetfire and replaced it with a four-barrel carburettor only a year after production. Turbocharging would not be seen in cars until 1970 in the BMW 2002. This was another car that was as far ahead of time as its name. Though, the BMW 2002 was incredibly fast, it was not without many flaws. The car suffered from poor fuel economy and turbo lag that greatly dragged down performance. Much like the Jetfire, the car was axed a year after production. Much like its American counterpart, the BMW 2002 remains a prized collector car.

Turbos only received a minor setback. The technology would be seen again in 1978 on the Mercedes Benz 300SD. Instead of being equipped on gasoline cars, this time the turbo was installed on a diesel car. The Mercedes Benz 300SD can be considered the world’s first commercially successful turbocharged car. Therefore, it helped a great deal in building the exciting image of turbocharging. While turbocharging was debatable for gasoline cars, it soon became a staple for diesel cars. As a result, French carmakers caught onto the turbodiesel craze introduced by offering turbochargers on their diesel cars.

(Credits: German Cars For Sale Blog)

Keep in mind that the 1970s were not only known for great music and fashion, but it was a time of the oil crisis as well. Automakers were involved in a push to minimize fuel consumption and emissions. Turbochargers were seen as an effective means to achieve this while significantly generating more power. This was especially the case with Diesel engines. Soon, the Saab 99 Turbo would make its entrance, telling us that turbocharging was spooling up into a highly sought-after technology.

Moving on into the 1980s, turbos were offered on a wide variety of sports and luxury cars. Nissan offered it on the GT-R, Buick offered one on the Regal,?Toyota offered it on the Supra, Ferrari fitted turbochargers on their F40s, even Citroen offered turbocharged variants for their diesel cars as mentioned earlier. As a matter of fact, many turbocharged cars defeated their naturally aspirated counterparts in motorsports. Moreover, it was in this era where the Nissan GT-R would earn the title of ‘Godzilla’. It did not stop there, the Porsche 911 Turbo (930) was the fastest production car of its time, thanks to the turbocharged power plant in the back. With that said, having a turbocharged car now instantly made anyone the cool kid on the block.

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But why stop at a single turbo? Maserati fitted not one, but two turbochargers to the Maserati Biturbo in 1981. The Biturbo had a parallel twin turbo system. This meant that two turbos would kick in at the same time to generate hefty amounts of horsepower. Still, turbo lag was a major issue that needed to be dealt with. Soon, the Porsche 959 introduced sequential turbocharging. This was a system where the first turbo would spool in lower rpm ranges and the second turbo would take over in higher rpm ranges, effectively minimising turbo lag. Eventually, Bugatti took things a step further by installing not one, not two, but four turbochargers on the EB110.

However, the turbocharger’s reign was far from over. Honda would implement the variable geometry turbocharger in the 1988 Honda Legend. A variable geometry turbocharger can change the air vane as the conditions change. Unlike a typical turbocharger, a variable geometry turbocharger does not require a wastegate. Soon, twin-scroll turbocharging appeared in some cars and was offered by performance shops everywhere. This was the next step in the evolution of the turbocharger. A twin scroll turbocharger gathers exhaust from the engine in alternating sequence rather than all at once.

At present, every second car on the street may be turbocharged from the factory. What was once a performance upgrade is now standard equipment on many cars. Diesels have long benefitted from turbocharging since 1979 and gasoline engines may soon follow for a majority of cars as they greatly assist fuel economy. Seeing how turbo technology will take shape in the coming years can rev excitement in any enthusiast’s heart. Honda now offers a turbo Civic, turbos are now available in Ford Mustangs and Raptors. In fact, many economy cars have turbo engines as well. Now, it is increasingly becoming a challenge to come across a naturally aspirated modern car these days.

(Credits: Garrett Advancing Motion)

While Mercedes Benz may be credited with producing the world’s first commercially successful turbocharged car, they now installed an e-turbo in the very first production car. As the name suggests, these turbochargers are assisted with electronics in order to help them perform better. They are already used in Formula 1 and now, Mercedes has debuted the technology in their 2022 C43 AMG. Being the universal turbo masters, Garrett has once again pioneered the technology for the German carmaker. This new generation of e-turbochargers not only boosts the car’s engine performance, but they also charge the hybrid-electric battery as well. Speaking of turbos, here’s a fun fact, the new Porsche Taycan has a ‘Turbo’ variant, except it has no turbo since it is fully electric! Now just who thought slapping the ‘Turbo’ name on the Taycan was a good idea?