TECHNOLOGY
BLAST FROM Reproduced Courtesy Of: Commercial Motor
Gas turbines are used for many applications, aircraft, ships, tanks, and stationary generators to name a few, but they’ve never really caught on for road vehicles. That’s not to say they haven’t been tried in trucks, nor that development isn’t ongoing.
The “Turbine” badge on an otherwise standard-looking Ergomatic cab is about the only clue to what is under the floor
T
he roots of the gas turbine go back to 0AD, when Hero of Alexandria invented the aeolipile, a reactive steam turbine that converted heat into rotary movement. But it was seen purely as a toy and it was another 1,500 years before Ottoman scientist Taqi 36
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al-Din built a working steam turbine to power a roasting spit, although Leonardo da Vinci had drawn a similar design 50 years previously. The gas turbine, as we know it today, was patented in 1791 by Englishman John Barber. An automotive application for the gas turbine was first
conceived by Rover, in an amazing piece of diversification for what was regarded as the most quintessentially conservative of motor manufacturers. However, it’s not so strange when you realise that Rover was contracted by the Government in 1939 to assist with developing and
