When the Diesel came to Indy... Film of #28!

[Jive-Bomber]

You may remember my post a few years back about this fantastic car running at Indianapolis in 1952. I just found this Cummins promotional film clip with footage of their innovati...

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[Ddooce]

Very interesting - a nice comparison with this years Le Mans winner - thanks for posting.

[JeffreyJames]

That's some cool stuff right there. The design of that car was so incredible in 1952 compared to how tall they were in previous years. Who would have thought that the cars winning Le Mans this year would be carrying the torch from a car of yesteryear.

I wish I could have been there to hear them in person.

[OldsPwdRatTrk]

Hey guys,
I work for Cummins. The car is sitting about a block away from me in the company museum. It's a pretty awesome story for sure and a cool car. Makes me proud to work for a company that's still pretty innovative and still based in little old Columbus, IN.
Brent

[falcongeorge]

One of my all-time favorite indy cars. My dad has an ancient Automobile Quarterly that has really nice color photos of that car, as well as a bunch of other indy cars from the '30s-'50s. Always used to pull it out and look at that car when I was a kid.

[chaddilac]

That is freakin awesome!!!

Where's the guys that'll say the rings will wear out on one side of the piston!!

[Joshua Shaw]

GREAT VIDEO!! Good stuff man!

I was not able to read through the previous thread you posted on this fine car, and the companies fantastic effort at the 500, but.. Did anyone bring up, and discuss the HUGE CUBIC INCH break the Diesels were given compared to the other cars in the field?

I am by no means an expert on this topic, but have stumbled across it in other studies.

In NO WAY do I want to take away from what these guys did, but as I understand it, CUMMINS dropped a SHIT TON of money into AAA and in turn, AAA allowed them 200 more c.i..

??? True or not ??? I don't know.

Kick ass looking car either way!


Thanks for sharing!

J Shaw

[rjaustin421]

As I understood it the car failed because (Don??) Cummins insisted that the air intake remain on the bottom of the car in spite of objections from most everyone with Indy experience. The air intake got clogged from the rubber & assorted debris from the track and sure enough the naysayers were proven correct.

That is THE car that singlehandedly changed the design of the Indy roadsters.

[flamingokid]

A beautiful car and technological marvel.

[kombi66]

met the driver of the car in the 80's at a trucking industry convention in san francisco have a signed pic of him and the car somewhere

[jguff]

In the video it looks like it had too much power for those skinny tires. The way the tires smoked coming out of the turns would indicate it could not keep up those lap speeds for very long.

Jerome

[gnichols]

Cool, but my Dad and I were also NOVI fans and those guys were big pioneers also - but with zero success in the race. Let's hope some day the 21st century diesel tech of, say, Peugeot or Audi crosses over to Indy, assuming an equivalency formula could be created for all types of power plants and, of course, I wasn't the only one who'd like to see that again at the Brickyard. Or hybrids, even? Gary

[autobilly]

What a revolution! (From a guy that generally hates filthy, stinking', heavy diesels.)
Great film, thanks.

[29bowtie]

What great achievements that car made. Saw this on www.commercialmotor.com/big-lorry-blog thought it made a good addition to the thread.

[goetzcr]

That is one of the coolest vids I've seen in a while. Cool car, a bit of history, and great drama during the qualifying portion of the video. That car looks killer even with the skin off. I love the way the frame hugs the sidways diesel. I wonder if this car ever gets run or toured.