Driving Force The Evolution Of The Car Engine

By: Jeff Daniels .

What was the first truly modern car engine? It may be an impossible question to answer even with hindsight - but hindsight is what Driving Force provides. From the first stuttering attempts of Daimler and Benz, engines which barely produced enough power to keep themselves running, this book charts the evolution of the passenger car engine to the mechanical marvels of today - smooth, clean, quiet and easy to drive.

It was not, however, a smooth process. Here are the fascinating details of some of the horrors that occurred along the way, the mistakes as well as the triumphs in a great sweep of intriguing technical history.

Well over a century ago, two German pioneers, Daimler and Benz, tackled the problem of making the internal combustion engine light and powerful enough to be used in a 'horseless carriage'. The idea of the carriage was not new, but in the 1880s they were steam-powered. The work of Daimler and Benz, and those who followed in their footsteps, was to change all that. By the time the 20th century dawned, the new engines were being built by the thousand and the motor car was no longer a plaything for the rich. Yet that was only the beginning, for the 20th century saw the internal combustion engine develop from a crude lump of machinery with a thirst for fuel and an exhaust full of emissions, into the clean, quiet and powerful units in today's cars.

Driving Force charts the history of that progress, its milestones, but also the mistakes some engineers would rather forget. It shows how the design of the engine changed, the way the diesel engine found its own corner of the market, and the changes which were forced upon designers as limits were imposed on exhaust emissions.

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