The Oldsmobile Jetfire Rocket was the first production turbo car, but it was more of a problem than a solution
Published by The team in News the
26/08/2022 at 11:25
These days it's just common for a car to use a turbocharged engine, either for the purpose of downsizing , performance enhancement or because the vehicle in question is focused on sporty driving, they even have up to with four turbos as in the case of the Bugatti. But, it wasn't always like that, in fact you wondered what was the first production turbo car?
Although turbocharger technology was developed in the 1920s, it took many years for a turbo to be placed in a mass production car and although the results were not as expected, it served turning point for other brands to do.
The American firm Oldsmobile, whose parent company was General Motors, was the first to surprise enthusiasts, with a block assisted by a turbocharger , mounted on a 100% tramway. This is the Oldsmobile Jetfire Rocket , a 1962 Coupé which, after saying a technological and mechanical first, became one of the most advanced vehicles of the time.
The Jetfire Rocket hid under the hood a block whose displacement was a bit low for those years. A 3.5-liter V8 was loaded with a Garrett T5 turbo and together they delivered 215 hp at 4,600 rpm and 310 lb-ft of torque at 3,000 rpm . While the metal snail had a compression ratio of 10.25 to 1.
However, although the premise was promising, the mechanics didn't perform well and tended to suffer from heating issues, so Oldsmobile itself decided to pull the model from the market, with over 9,000 units sold . .
The rest is history, as over the years turbo-powered models have appeared which have failed less and whose performance has lived up to what many expected. The BMW 2002 and the Saab 99 Turbo are two clear examples of what emerged on the European continent.