I’m sure most you have seen this one before, but the “Beast of Turin” never fails to impress me. Built in 1911 to take the world’s fastest car title from the 21 liter “Blitzen Benz”, the Fiat S76 had a four cylinder engine with a bore of 7 1/2″ and stroke of 9 27/32″, for a total displacement of 1729 cubic inches. Its output was 300 hp at a thunderous 1800 rpm, enough to do the trick: 187 kmh (116 mph), a certified run at Saltburn, UK. A later run on the sandy flats of Ostende yielded 137 mph, but did not make the record books for lack of a return run. Contrary to popular myth, it was not an “airship engine”, although a later Fiat airship engine did use the same bore and stroke. Last but not least: Torque was rated at 2000 lb/ft.
image: mrscharoo’sphotostream
Something tells me that the vibration of an engine of those dimensions at that time in history would have been pretty wicked.
And no Paul, I’ve never heard of this one before.
Good luck starting that with the hand crank.
It would ‘only’ have made 875 ft/lbs of torque at its horsepower peak, and its torque peak would have had to be well below 800 rpm in order for it not to have made more than 300 hp at its torque peak. Also, torque production would have had to drop pretty fast from the peak in order to avoid making more than 300 hp at any rpm lower than 1,800.
As they say, there is no substitute for cubic inches. If vertical shake in a 4 becomes a problem in engines over 2 liters (like the 200 ci/3.3 liter Ford Model A), imagine the size of the balance shafts that it would take to smooth this turkey out. Ooo,wait: turn it into a boxer 8 with 3458 cubic inches!
Had they made this in the 1960s, they could have put a really cool “1729” emblem on the fenders. 🙂 THAT’s how you impress guys at the drive-in!
How much did this thing weigh? It must have been a behemoth, in every sense of the word…
2000 ft/lbs.of torque? Even if it had “only” 875 ft/lbs. of torque as CJ says, what the heck kept those spokes in the wheels? I would have imagined they would snap like toothpicks!
The cars from this era fascinate me. Imagine the “stones” it took to light one of these things up and drive it 100+ MPH! In a leather helmet, jacket and goggles, no less.
This guy’s stuff really IS bigger than yours!
He said “only 875 lb/ft at its power peak; torque always drops after the torque peak, as an engine approaches its power peak.
Spoked wheels are plenty strong.
‘Contrary to popular myth, it was not an “airship engine”
I’d have bought that story… it looks like they just unbolted a whole nacelle and slapped axles on it!
Okay, I’ll bite. WHAT kind of gearing is going to be needed, to get an engine redlined at 1800rpm up to 137 mph? While running it at speeds up to? Even if the thing were towed to start, low gear would have to be able to propel the monster at 20-25 mph. Now, with such a narrow rpm band…how are you going to get all the way to 130-plus?
Not calling b.s. but there’s more to the story.
If the torque peak was at 800 rpm, it probably idled at about 180 rpm (or less). That’s not inordinately low for such a large engine and huge flywheel. And that would mean there was a 1:10 ratio from idle to redline; that’s much more than most modern high performance engines which might idle at say 1500 rpm, and have a redline of say 7000-8000 or so.
There was no push starting this; it was a streetable car. Racing cars were always driven to races back then; there was no such thing as auto transporters for racing cars until well into the twenties. Unheard of in 1911; and it would have been considered highly unsportsman-like.
If it did 5mph at idle, then it would go to 50 before shifting into second….see where this is going? With three or four gears, no problem.
Even if it idled at 300 rpm or so, the gearing is not a problem.
I chose 800 rpm as a torque peak arbitrarily and then determined that the engine would already be making 304 hp at that speed were it producing 2,000 ft/lbs. The torque peak would need to be even lower to be consistent with the claimed figures, which I suppose it could be. There are huge ship engines that turn much slower, but they are compression ignited rather than being 4-stroke, spark ignited engines. Hopefully Duncan Pittaway will complete his restoration and more information will be available. I’m curious what the starting method is. I suppose with compression released the engine could be turned to just past top dead center of the first cylinder and then it could be started by firing something resembling a shot gun blank down onto the piston top to get the crank turning. I’ve read about old tank engines that were started similarly.
There is at least one car with an engine larger than this… a BMW 46 liter V12 powered vehicle built on a modified American LaFrance chassis. It was featured on Top Gear a year or two ago, but the history of it seems a little fishy. Supposedly it was built in Germany in the 1920’s, but there doesn’t appear to be any documentation to support that claim – and the style of it looks a lot more like somebody’s idea of a “rat rod” tribute to cars from that era than something that was actually designed and built back then. It’s incredibly impressive regardless, though even if it’s legit (which I seriously doubt) it wasn’t a factory produced vehicle like the Fiat.
There were only two S76’s built – parts of both survived and are currently being combined into one vehicle by someone with lots of time and money in England. It’s a massive undertaking with lots of parts (like the entire gearbox) being built from scratch, so it might take awhile to get there – but when it does I really hope some videos will surface with good quality sound. The world needs to hear what a 28 liter four banger from a CENTURY ago looks and sounds like!
Even before the record run Luigi had wound the seat back as far as it would go
there’s an interesting discussion going on here : http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=94880
There are some photos of the Fiat S76 on this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Roach-Manufacturing-Ltd/171049199658305
Looks to be an incredible car, can’t wait to see it out and running.
The Beast of Turin lives! For those who seek a video, look no further:
The bang and rattle shakes my bones from here, 103 years later. Well done, Fiat.