The New Engine

From General Motors Corp.'s research shops last week came a torpedo-shaped car with a revolutionary new engine. Called the XP-50O, the car is powered by a 250-h.p. "free-piston" engine that many Detroit engineers think may be the intermediate stage between today's piston-engine cars and tomorrow's gas turbines.

The principle of the free-piston engine has been known for more than 30 years, and has been applied in Europe for locomotives, ships and stationary power plants. But, says G.M.'s President Harlow Curtice, G.M. "is the first to put it to work in an automobile." The heart of the G.M. engine is two cylinders, each containing two opposed pistons. When fuel is exploded between the pistons they are driven apart and slammed together again. This has the effect of a bellows, forcing air out of the cylinder to turn a turbine wheel, which is geared to turn the car's rear wheels.

This engine has many qualities that may endear it to Detroit and the motoring public. Like the gas turbine engine, it will run on the lowest grades of fuel, will even run on peanut oil. It needs no crankshaft or connecting rods, and it has so few rotating parts that friction and wear are far less than in standard piston engines. Furthermore, unlike the gas turbine, its turbine wheel runs cool, hence does not require costly heat-resistant alloys. General Motors has no immediate plans to produce the free-piston engine. But G.M.'s engineers hope that its debut in dealers' salesrooms is not many years away.

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