Economy and reliability are two qualities valued by the clients of
Fiat
, the Italian automobile company founded at the turn of the century, in 1899. Respect for these precepts does not prevent it from starring in an extravagant moment that still lives on the edge of belief today. .
70 years ago, after the Second World War, its tradition on wheels crossed with its own department of aeronautics.
The project was barely testimonial, but it turned out to be revolutionary:
a car with an airplane engine and a futuristic design.
Fiat Turbine
The Fiat Turbina prototype drew attention from all over the world.
Although it never went into production, it brought out
its 300 horsepower and an aerodynamic record unmatched for decades
.
It was the time of the turbines, a mechanism that had broken into the aeronautical industry just before.
Germany was the advanced country in this technology with the Heinkel He 178 (first plane with a jet engine, from 1939) and with the Messerschmitt Me 262 swallow (1941) that sowed death in the Luftwaffe.
Once the war ended, the commercial sector adopted these developments in a context of tensions, but also of optimism: terror seemed to have been left behind, fuel seemed infinite, and both the United States and the Soviet Union began to dream of setting foot on the Moon and beyond.
Fiat Turbine
Although it was not the only one that embarked on the adventure at the end of the forties,
the Italian firm left its mark in the attempt to combine the advances of the air with its knowledge of the land
.
He competed inch by inch with other firms, such as Rover.
The difference was made with a vehicle that sent a signal to its competitors and that raised the Italian flag on its wings in the middle of the reconstruction period.
Fiat Turbina, the car that was born to lead the race for progress
The Aeronautics and Automobile departments formed a team led by Dante Giacosa, one of the most important men in Italian industry in the 20th century.
He was accompanied by Vittorio Bellicardi -he was in charge of the engine- and Luigi Rappi -the man behind the design-.
They all left their mark.
The project began in 1948 and
lasted six years until its public debut, at the Turin Motor Show
.
From the beginning, everyone was warned: it was a prototype, with no real chance of reaching series production.
But he had his reasons for existing.
Fiat Turbine
“I feared that in the race for progress that had been accelerated by warfare technology, we might be outpaced by others,” Giacosa defined his vision.
"I remembered what had happened to piston-engined planes suddenly being overwhelmed by jets."
The engineer knew what he was talking about, since he had worked in the company's aeronautics area.
His contemporaries, moreover, were witnesses of this change: the first commercial flight of a jet-engined plane linked London and Johannesburg in 1952 and
the first Italian jet came out of the same Turin company in 1951.
The base model with which the chosen team worked was the Fiat 8V, a brand new two-door sports coupe.
The next step involved building the aircraft engine to power the concept car.
It was called “Type 8001”, a double-stroke centrifugal compressor connected directly to the rear axle and on which a special mechanism had to be mounted so that the eventual driver would not die in the attempt.
The Fiat 8V on which the Turbina was based.
Before the public presentation, the Turbina went out to roll on the test track planted on the roof of the factory in Lingotto, a route of 2.1 kilometers.
And then he submitted to the merciless eye of the company authorities at the Turin Airport.
After official approval, it dazzled at the city's Motor Show, as if it had come from another time and with two unprecedented data.
Turbine, fins and record friction: this was the vehicle with an aircraft engine
The work of Rappi and the Centro Stile Fiat was a prototype painted in red and white, spindly and abundant in curves.
From his ancestor he bequeathed a prominent trunk.
Some additions gave it a personal character, coincidentally similar to the flying cars that
The Jetsons would popularize from 1962.
In the front it carried retractable headlights and, in case of going out on the track, also removable.
The cabin was of the bubble type, with two places
.
In the rear sector it carried the distinctive features: a central mouth in the trunk and two fins on the sides that gave stability at maximum speed.
On them, the name of the parent company in gold and three lines with the colors of the Italian flag, the line to sign its inclusion in the book of records: its friction index, barely 0.14, was maintained for three decades. as the lowest.
This aerodynamic discovery had to be accompanied by unparalleled mechanical development, which is, ultimately, what identified the project:
a gas turbine and three combustion chambers that generated 22,000 rpm
.
Fiat Turbine
The single-speed transmission system had a reduction gear or reducer that lowered that frequency to a manageable number: 4,000 rpm.
At the end of the process, the engine generated the equivalent of 300 hp and the vehicle reached 250 km/h.
The Fiat Turbina, 4.3 meters long and weighing one ton, was "designed and built for experimentation and study", the company recognized in those years.
It was a unique trial that faced insurmountable difficulties beforehand
: the size of the engine, the heat and noise generated by the turbine, in addition to the fuel requirements, an issue that would become problematic due to the famine that broke out some time later.
At the Automobile Museum in his native Turin, visitors see it today as it was advertised in 1954: an “emotionally attractive” car, with high performance and flowing lines, inviting one to walk on earth as in heaven.
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