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00:17We'll get a convertible, the director said, and then the sun will shine in your face and we won't
00:22need lights. In Scotland, in March? I don't think so. Anyway, are you one of those people who never lifts
00:30the bonnet on your car because you're frightened of what goes inside? Come with me, why don't you, on a
00:35journey of discovery, while I explain what a simple thing it is. The internal combustion engine, so-called because there
00:42is combustion and explosion internally.
00:46This one-litre engine, when turned, will suck one litre of air and fuel into its cylinders. But what if
00:52you blew two litres of mixture into it? By then, it would be supercharged. Any questions?
01:0370 years ago, supercharging an engine became firstly a matter of national pride and then ultimately of life and you
01:11-know-what. And I've no wish to stir up old memories, but frankly, this is a tale about us and
01:17the other chaps.
01:20Certainly, you have to know, in principle, the characteristics of your enemy.
01:26Well, of course, the Rolls-Royce supercharge is far superior.
01:31You could drive with any size of engine, with any type of car as you want.
01:37The problem was keeping the tyres on.
01:42The two countries whose national pride was at stake back in those halcyon days were Britain and, yes, you've guessed
01:49it, the Germans.
01:51When they met in the British Grand Prix in Brooklands in 1927, frankly, our chaps wiped the floor with Johnny
01:58Forriner.
01:59Henry Timberkin outstripped the field in a car that was not only a superb bit of engineering, but also a
02:05symbol of Britain's national pride and confidence.
02:17Isn't she beautiful?
02:19The 1927, four and a half litre Bentley.
02:22Tim Buckhead took one of these round here at Brooklands in 1927 and won.
02:27And then he went on to Le Mans and hammered the lap record.
02:31Not a bad year for the Brits, really.
02:39So old Timmy Birkin could have been forgiven for feeling rather cocky in 1928, until a few months later, when
02:49he came here to Nürburgring for the German Grand Prix, when he encountered these beasties.
02:55And then I suspect he probably wished he was wearing brown overalls.
03:04And there goes Stump, and there goes Ficklefinger, and there goes another German whose name is Capesman.
03:09And there's Tim Beckett in his Bentley four and a half litre, finishing in eighth position. He'll not be happy
03:15today.
03:16So, Mercedes first, second and third in the 1929 German Grand Prix.
03:19Bad luck, chap. Better luck next year.
03:23So, what was it that Timmy saw in the woodshed that so frightened him?
03:26Was it the sharp corners and the big nasty cars?
03:29No, he was well used to that.
03:31What gave him the fright of his life was the device at the front of this engine here.
03:35It's capable of boosting the output of these engines by almost 50%.
03:40And it's called a supercharger.
03:44So, now I've won the Jesse hat competition.
03:47Boys, let's start our engines.
03:58Okay, let's go.
03:59Let's go, let's go.
04:01Yeah!
04:09How do you actually engage the supercharger then?
04:12The supercharger is engaged by pressing the throttle full down on the floor.
04:18Yes.
04:19The effect is the same like a modern automatic car, like a kick down.
04:25You feel it now.
04:35Oh, Tim didn't know what hit him.
04:37But as soon as he found out, he swore he'd never race again without one.
04:44This is Axel, and this is Axel's car, which is why I call him Very Lucky Axel.
04:48So, can you, could you show us the supercharger and what's going on here?
04:52Of course.
04:53Let's clip this one, shall I?
04:57Fantastic.
04:58So, these are carburetors, like a normal engine, but what is surprising, of course, is this, isn't it?
05:07Yes, this here is a supercharger, and the supercharger is mounted vertically in front of the crankshaft, and it is
05:18running at three times engine speeds.
05:21And the supercharger gives the pressure to the carburetors, and then the mixture is flowing inside the engine.
05:34And that fantastic noise is made in the carburetors by the pressed air.
05:47As soon as you're lifting your foot up from the pedal, there is a clutch stop, too, which stops the
05:56supercharger immediately.
06:01The idea behind it was to use the supercharger only temporarily.
06:07Yes.
06:08And so, Ferdinand Porsche constructed it as it is here.
06:13Ferdinand Porsche.
06:14I wonder what came of him.
06:17This must have been one of his first big jobs, was it?
06:20Yes.
06:20Yeah, he must have been a young Turk in those days.
06:25Of course, in fairness, the Germans did have a few advantages.
06:29Their engines were two liters larger, and successive governments massively funded research into engine design.
06:35The Daimler-Benz team had unlimited technical and financial backing.
06:39They weren't only racing for national pride, either.
06:41However, the German government was offering very large sums of money, indeed, to German racing teams who pulled off a
06:47Grand Prix win.
06:54I mean, it's hardly cricket.
06:56In Britain, if you improve the performance of your engine more than a certain amount, the government put up your
07:01rope tax.
07:02Nevertheless, as soon as they got back to Blighty, our chaps started fiddling with the idea of a supercharger of
07:08their own.
07:10And, uh, you're the best man to explain this to us, because you were, uh, you were part of the
07:15design team, weren't you?
07:15Well, this is a supercar, of course.
07:18Uh-huh.
07:18Supercharged four and a half, a Le Mans car.
07:21Marvellous.
07:23Rivers used to drive a bit.
07:24Here he is hill-climbing in the 50s.
07:31That takes me back a long time, of course.
07:34Does it, does it?
07:35That's what we used to call the blower, a supercharged, Amherst Villiers supercharger.
07:42So we didn't really want to have supercharged Bentleys.
07:45They weren't a commercial proposition.
07:47Every time this was discussed with W.O. Bentley, obviously he hated it.
07:53I mean, these designers, you know, they are only, they're brilliant people.
07:59They want their own design.
08:00And the idea of someone else's supercharger on his unsupercharged car.
08:07Anyway, Tim Birkin had to get, have superchargers, and we built them.
08:17All the cars at Le Mans had to be production cars.
08:21So we had to build 50 to make two or three, actually, for Le Mans.
08:32The Bentleys externally mounted supercharger takes its inspiration from a very ancient Egyptian device.
08:40Has he gone raving mad, are you asking yourselves?
08:42What is he doing now?
08:43Well, there's a principle involved here.
08:46It was the Egyptians who first noticed that a fire burns much quicker and much hotter when there's a bit
08:53of a breeze.
08:54And they invented a sort of bellows system for melting down very nice bits of bronze.
09:00And that's really the principle involved in the supercharger.
09:03Everything has to have oxygen to burn.
09:05And the more oxygen there is, the quicker it burns, and the more of whatever it is you're burning, you
09:09can burn.
09:10So basically, that's just a very posh set of bellows.
09:14So it's tsuk-suk, blow-blow, whiz-whiz, wallop.
09:25It must have been a very expensive engineering project for one person to finance.
09:30Where did he find the money then, old Birkin?
09:32Oh, well, of course, he was a very wealthy man, very spoiled, always spoiled, partly because he had terrific charm,
09:40particularly with the ladies.
09:42Yeah, I know that type.
09:43So Tim had a wonderful girlfriend, the Honourable Dorothy Padgett, a very wealthy girl, spending a lot of money on
09:50expensive horses.
09:52And she wanted to please Tim Birkin.
09:56And Tim Birkin said, look, can I have superchargers for my Bentleys?
10:01And she said, yes, I'll pay for them.
10:03Well, good old Dottie is all I can say.
10:05Oh, yes, yes, wonderful.
10:08Well, in spite of the fact that Lady Dorothy had given Tim a blower, he never came first.
10:14The difference that gave the Germans the edge was in the engineering of the supercharger.
10:18The subtlety of the Mercedes meant that it only kicked in when full power was needed.
10:23The Bentleys' blower, however, was permanently engaged and therefore prone to overheating and mechanical failure.
10:29You could spend half the race in the pits.
10:32But as they say, when the going gets tough, the toughs get going.
10:38But Tim Birkin, with a blower car, drove so hard and so fast that all the Mercedes had to keep
10:47up.
10:47They thought, we can't be beaten by this.
10:50And, of course, they blew up.
10:53In fact, both the supercharged Mercedes and Bentleys expired under pressure.
10:57And so the winner was an unsupercharged Bentley, one that had been steadily doing the laps.
11:03But there had been five Bentleys racing against only one Mercedes.
11:08That was the kind of odds they needed poor souls.
11:12Still, there's no need to sound quite so arrogant about it.
11:15After all, the odds were heavily stacked in the Germans' favour.
11:18What with all the government's bondulics freely available.
11:22It makes an interesting comparison with Bentley.
11:25Whereas the Bentley supercharging effort was basically an upper-class nut of the few bob and the bright idea,
11:30the Mercedes development was backed by an enormous company,
11:34which in turn was backed by a fairly determined government, shall we say.
11:38And as the 30s progressed and the supercharger progressed, it's interesting because, of course,
11:44Germany was not, in those days, allowed to develop armaments.
11:48So one does wonder if the supercharger wasn't perhaps getting nearer and nearer being the perfect tool for the superman.
12:06As the 30s drew to a close, it became clear that the Germans had ambitions to use the supercharger
12:11for the domination of more than just the Grand Prix circuits of Europe.
12:18Well, Britain might have been getting a bit of a slapping on the ground,
12:21but at least we felt secure in the air.
12:26The Grand Prix of the year, the Schneider Trophy,
12:29was won three times in succession by British planes in the 30s.
12:34Sea planes streaking at 340 miles an hour
12:37indicated the enormous strides taken by aviation since the last war
12:40and its likely importance in the next.
12:44By a merciful providence, the new models developed from the Schneider Trophy sea planes
12:48were just coming into production when the present World War began.
12:56Of course, there is a world of difference between flying as fast as you can in a figure-eight at
13:00low altitude
13:00and engaging in an aerial dogfight, especially with the Messerschmitt 109.
13:08With its supercharged Daimler-Benz engine producing 2,000 horsepower
13:13and flown by ace pilots, men like Gunther Raal, who shotgunned 285 Allied planes,
13:19early encounters with the ME-109 were often literally devastating to the RAN.
13:37You know, when you fly this airplane for five or a half a year,
13:41you feel atone under all conditions.
13:44Certainly at the beginning of the war,
13:47flying this plane the first time in combat,
13:51it's very thrilling.
13:56The outcome of the first engagement is very important for the pilot.
14:00It gives you trust, self-confidence,
14:02and in my case also warning,
14:04because I got a lot of hits.
14:06In spite, I got my first victory.
14:09Did you have a lot of confidence in the engine?
14:11Did you think it was a great engine when you first flew this?
14:13Yes. The engine gave us enough power
14:16and we felt, at the beginning, superior.
14:21When I was chased by Spitfires,
14:23I tried to escape by pushing stick forward full power and go.
14:28Right.
14:28You know, and it worked, you see.
14:31Yes.
14:33So it would seem that all that money spent on the Daimler-Benz supercharger
14:37hadn't been in vain then.
14:41Well, of course, the Rolls-Royce supercharger is far superior.
14:45Was it?
14:45But remember that we had to start a fighter war with an engine
14:49which was smaller than the engines in the competing aircraft,
14:52the Me-109.
14:54So we had to boost the engine to higher pressures
14:56to make up for a smaller capacity.
15:00The supercharged Merlin engine in the Mark 9 Spitfire
15:03is what they came up with.
15:11In many ways, the supercharger in the Spitfire
15:14was a lot like the old Bentley and the blower.
15:17Constantly engaged, prone to overheating,
15:19mechanically it was much simpler than the Daimler-Benz,
15:22but at least it now came with two speeds.
15:38The Spitfire was easier to handle, far easier to handle.
15:41But in many ways, the Messerschmitt was faster in climbing,
15:46faster in diving,
15:48getting away and catching up again, you know?
15:52Well, it's a perfectly ordinary, calm day in suburbia,
15:55and while some people are cutting their lawns
15:57and digging in the vegetables,
15:59Siggy here is working on his Messerschmitt engines.
16:03What could be more natural?
16:05Can you explain to people
16:07why there was a need for a supercharger?
16:09Because if you are way up in the air, high up,
16:12you have less air pressure,
16:14and the engine loses performance.
16:16Right.
16:17So now, in order to have its maximum power available
16:21also at high altitudes,
16:23you have to artificially compress the air.
16:26Compress the air, yes.
16:26So you have to provide air pressure by the supercharger.
16:31As usual, the Germans went for a more complicated design.
16:35The Messerschmitt supercharger
16:36was governed by variable air pressure,
16:39giving the 109 the opportunity
16:40for maximum power at any altitude.
16:44The variable part is inside of this clutch.
16:48This piece here.
16:51See?
16:52Yes.
16:52And you see the ribs on it?
16:55Yes.
16:55The more oil pressure pumped into this,
16:58the less slippage do you have?
16:59Yes.
16:59And the more RPM comes out of the impeller.
17:02Engineering or what?
17:04The Germans claim
17:06that theirs was superior
17:08because it's variable speed
17:10and disengages at low revs.
17:12Well, I think that the variable speed idea
17:14was very, very good indeed.
17:15No question about that.
17:17We looked into it
17:18and we decided that the mechanical blower,
17:22two speeds and two stage,
17:24is what we had to go to.
17:26The blower pressure is kept constant
17:28up to as far as it will go with one gear.
17:32And then as soon as you go above that altitude
17:34at which you reach the maximum for that gear,
17:37you change the gear to a higher ratio.
17:49Now, another positive feature on this engine
17:51is direct fuel injection.
17:53Used in a Messerschmitt,
17:55the pilot could go into a very steep dive
17:57because it supplied the correct mixture
18:00in every stage of its flight.
18:03Even on its back,
18:05since it used direct fuel injection,
18:08you had no cough,
18:09no nothing.
18:11First of all,
18:12we admired the principle of fuel injection
18:14because we had carburetors on the Merlin.
18:17And one of the weaknesses
18:19of that particular system
18:20was that when the aircraft dived,
18:22the engine cut out
18:23due to negative G,
18:24the fuel was thrown up
18:25to the top of the float chamber
18:26and the engine cut out.
18:28Yes.
18:28This was a bit of a panic at the time.
18:30I would think so.
18:31And we had to overturn that problem.
18:33Yes.
18:33Yes.
18:34But there's another factor
18:35which you may not know about.
18:37The evaporation of the fuel
18:38drops the temperature by 25 degrees.
18:41That raises the pressure ratio
18:43of the compressor,
18:44of the blower,
18:45Yes.
18:46to your advantage.
18:47Oh, wow.
18:47So you get that gain
18:49with the carburetor system
18:50that you don't have
18:51with the injection system.
18:53Mechanical considerations aside,
18:55in my mind,
18:56the Spitfire
18:57is almost perfect
18:58to the eye.
19:00Whereas...
19:03Is this a better plane
19:05than the Spitfire?
19:07I think the Spitfire
19:09was a very good airplane,
19:11no doubt.
19:12And the Spitfire
19:13had some goodies
19:14over the 109.
19:16For instance,
19:18I flew it.
19:19They had a beautiful wing.
19:21Yes.
19:22The Spitfire.
19:23Beautiful wing.
19:24We felt that
19:25this is a very,
19:26very adequate opponent.
19:29Was there an ideal position
19:30to get a Spitfire in
19:31if you wanted to get it?
19:32You know,
19:32I mean,
19:32do you come from underneath?
19:34Do you come from above?
19:35Do you come from above?
19:35None of you just,
19:36whatever you could get.
19:37You don't have always see
19:40the favour to select
19:41your position,
19:42you know?
19:43You are in.
19:44You have to see
19:45how to come out.
19:52If I said,
19:53I am Father Christmas,
19:54I can get you
19:55any bit of machinery
19:56you want,
19:56what would you get?
19:59That would be
20:00definitely a 109.
20:01And maybe one of these days
20:03I will even fly one.
20:12So,
20:13the next question has to be,
20:14how did you come by
20:15these engines,
20:15Sigi?
20:16Oh,
20:17that's a,
20:17oh,
20:18that's a big,
20:19very big story.
20:20Most of these engines
20:21are crashes.
20:28We got engaged
20:30with two Russians
20:31and I turned in
20:33and got one
20:35and he caught fire
20:36and in this very moment
20:38his wingman
20:39came behind me
20:40and shut off my engine.
20:44Some of these
20:45have been in the ground
20:47down to 8 metres deep
20:50for 50 years.
20:53The engine
20:54was just windmilling.
20:55Couldn't do anything more
20:56and I tried to get it down
20:58because we're
20:59over Russian territory.
21:00This one has been
21:01in a lake in Russia.
21:03I bell it in
21:04at a too high speed.
21:06These have been
21:07in a swamp
21:08and you see
21:09the steel is
21:10very well preserved.
21:11Yeah.
21:12The last thing I saw
21:13was this wall
21:14coming against me
21:16and from there on
21:17I couldn't remember anything.
21:20It's quite a bit of damage,
21:21you see.
21:22The aluminium
21:23has kept good
21:24but the steel
21:26has a lot of corrosion.
21:28I broke my bag
21:29three times
21:30and I was
21:31a little bit paralysed.
21:34It's always
21:35really depressing
21:35when you think
21:36that all this
21:36fantastic technical
21:37advances
21:38really came
21:40so we could kill
21:41each other
21:42more efficiently.
21:43That's what
21:43always depresses me.
21:45Mind you,
21:45all the knowledge
21:46that was accrued
21:49during that business
21:51it really did improve
21:52engine design
21:53for years afterwards,
21:54didn't it?
21:55Yes.
21:55Well, now that we've
21:56cleared the air
21:57and mentioned the war
21:59there's a great thing
22:00about these in a way
22:01it's just a bloody huge
22:03hairdryer.
22:03I mean, at the end of the day
22:04well, it is.
22:05I mean, for all its complexity
22:06in metering and so on
22:08at the end of the day
22:09it's just a big blower,
22:10isn't it?
22:10But this at 22,000 RPM
22:13used as a hairdryer
22:15and you look like me
22:17later on.
22:18That's what did it.
22:24I suppose the supercharger
22:26really belongs
22:27to that bygone age
22:28when the measure
22:29of a man's worth
22:30was judged
22:30by his capacity
22:31for devil-may-care
22:32recklessness
22:33or unselfish heroism.
22:35At least,
22:36that's what I thought
22:37until now.
22:39But then 60 years later
22:41we find a production car
22:43that has a standard
22:44a supercharger
22:46and I wonder
22:46if you can guess
22:47who made it?
22:51Let me give you a hint.
22:53It's meticulously engineered,
22:55its supercharger
22:56is variable
22:57and it's German.
23:00And, of course,
23:02it comes from a line
23:02of supercharged engineering
23:04that goes back
23:05nearly 70 years.
23:08Still,
23:09don't you worry, mate.
23:10I expect there's
23:11a couple of blokes
23:12in their shed
23:12in Soliholo
23:13or somewhere
23:13trying to wallop
23:14a supercharger
23:16onto a Mondeo.
23:17Don't get too confident,
23:19Germany.
23:25me.
23:30MUSIC PLAYS
23:39Oh, my God.
24:02Oh, my God.
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