1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth with its large rear wing at the British Motor Museum

A turbocharger takes something an engine throws away, the hot exhaust gases it pushes out of the tailpipe, and uses them to make more power. That one idea is more than a hundred years old. It went to sea and into the air long before it reached the road.

This is a short history of the turbo for anyone who has seen the badge on a boot lid and wondered what it does. As always on this site, I have picked out the British part of the story, and there is more of it than you might expect: the first turbocharged Formula 1 car made its debut at Silverstone, and one of the best known small turbo engines of recent years was developed in Britain.

Open the snapshot: the whole story in five points ▾
  • A turbocharger uses the hot exhaust gases an engine would throw away to push extra air into it, so it can burn more fuel and make more power.
  • Alfred Büchi, a Swiss engineer, patented the idea in 1905. Turbos went into ships, aircraft and lorries long before they reached cars.
  • The first turbocharged production cars were the Chevrolet Corvair Monza and the Oldsmobile Jetfire of 1962. Europe’s first was the BMW 2002 Turbo of 1973.
  • The first turbocharged Formula 1 car, the Renault RS01, made its debut at Silverstone in 1977. In the 1980s British cars went turbo too, from the Lotus Esprit to the MG Metro.
  • Today the turbo is in almost everything, including Ford’s 1.0 litre EcoBoost, which was developed in the UK.

In this article

How a turbo works, in one minute

An engine makes power by burning fuel with air. Get more air in, and you can burn more fuel and make more power.

A turbocharger is two small fans on one shaft. The exhaust leaving the engine spins the first fan, called the turbine. That spins the second fan, the compressor, which pushes extra air into the engine. The turbo is driven by energy in the exhaust gases, which leave through the exhaust pipe as normal.

A turbocharger on display, showing its snail-shell shaped housing and the fan-like wheel inside
A turbocharger, with its snail-shell shape. Photo: Tino Rossini from Toronto, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The catch is that the exhaust has to get the turbine spinning before anything happens. That short wait is called turbo lag, and most of the history below is engineers trying to get rid of it. For the longer version, with a moving diagram, see How a turbo works: a plain English guide.

1905 to 1945: ships, aircraft and lorries

The turbocharger is usually dated to 1905, when Alfred Büchi, a Swiss engineer working at Sulzer, patented an engine with an exhaust-driven turbine and a compressor on a common shaft.

Portrait of Alfred Büchi, the Swiss engineer who patented the turbocharger
Alfred Büchi, who patented the turbocharger in 1905. Photo: Johannes Meiner, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

It took a long time to work. Büchi finished a prototype in 1915, but it was unreliable and never reached production. The breakthrough came at sea. In 1925 two passenger ships, the Preussen and the Hansestadt Danzig, were fitted with turbocharged ten-cylinder diesel engines. The turbos lifted their output from 1,750 to 2,500 horsepower.

Aircraft were the next to benefit, because engines lose power as the air gets thinner. Tests in the United States in 1917 showed that a turbocharged Liberty aero engine lost no power all the way up to about 14,000 feet. From 1938 turbochargers were fitted to the Boeing B-17 bomber, and to several other American aircraft of the Second World War.

On the road, lorries came first. The Swiss firm Saurer fitted its first turbocharger to a diesel lorry in 1938.

1962: the first turbocharged cars

Cars had to wait until 1962, when General Motors launched two: the Chevrolet Corvair Monza and the Oldsmobile Jetfire. They are regarded as the first turbocharged production cars.

1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire, one of the first turbocharged production cars
A 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire. Photo: Greg Gjerdingen from Willmar, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The 1970s: Europe finds the point of it

Europe’s first turbocharged production car was a BMW. The 2002 Turbo was launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1973 with 170 PS. Its timing was terrible. It arrived just before the oil crisis, and only 1,672 were built. There is more on the 2002 in The history of BMW, through British eyes.

Silver BMW 2002 Turbo with Motorsport stripes and wide wheel arches
A BMW 2002 Turbo, Europe’s first turbocharged production car. Photo: Spurzem – Lothar Spurzem, CC BY-SA 2.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons.

Porsche was next. The very first 911 Turbo was built in 1974, and the cars that followed made the turbo famous. They also changed the shape of the car: when the 911 Turbo gained an intercooler in 1978, it needed a bigger spoiler to make room for it. That spoiler is the tea tray, which is number three in my ranking of the coolest Porsche spoilers.

Rear of the first Porsche 911 Turbo, built in 1974, with its whale tail spoiler
The very first Porsche 911 Turbo, built in 1974. Photo: Valder137, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The car that brought the turbo to ordinary drivers was Swedish. The Saab 99 Turbo of 1978 had 145 PS and was one of the first family cars to be fitted with a turbo. Until then turbocharged cars had been specialist machines that were hard to drive.

White 1979 Saab 99 Turbo
A 1979 Saab 99 Turbo. Photo: Rutger van der Maar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Diesels joined in at the same moment. The Mercedes-Benz 300SD, sold in the United States from the middle of 1978, was the first turbo-diesel production car. A year later the Peugeot 604 became the first one sold in Europe.

Silverstone, 1977: the yellow teapot

The turbo arrived in Formula 1 on British soil. On 16 July 1977, at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Renault lined up with the RS01, the first turbocharged Formula 1 car.

Yellow Renault RS01 Formula 1 car on track at Donington Park
A Renault RS01 being demonstrated at Donington Park in 2007. Photo: Darren, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

It did not go well. Jean-Pierre Jabouille retired after 16 laps when the turbocharger failed, and James Hunt won the race. The car broke down so often, usually in a cloud of white smoke, that rival teams called it “the yellow teapot”.

They stopped laughing two years later. Jabouille won the 1979 French Grand Prix in a Renault, the first victory for a turbocharged car in Formula 1. In 1983 Nelson Piquet became the first driver to win the world championship with a turbo engine, in a British Brabham powered by BMW.

The 1980s: Britain goes turbo

By the early 1980s a turbo badge was the thing to have, and British car makers joined in at every price.

  • Lotus Esprit Turbo, 1980. A 2.2 litre four-cylinder with 210 horsepower, 0 to 60 mph in 6.1 seconds and a top speed of 150 mph. The Esprit was assembled at Hethel in Norfolk.
  • Bentley Mulsanne Turbo, 1982. Launched at the Geneva Motor Show and built in Crewe. A turbocharger raised the power of its 6.75 litre V8 by half, and helped give Bentley an identity of its own again.
  • MG Metro Turbo, 1982. First shown at the Birmingham Motor Show that October. Its 1,275 cc engine made 93 bhp, enough for 112 mph.
  • Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, 1986. A 2.0 litre turbocharged engine built in Britain by Cosworth, and a top speed of 149 mph. Ford built 5,545 of them, followed by 500 of the RS500, the version made for racing.
Blue Lotus Esprit Essex Turbo with red and silver stripes
A Lotus Esprit Essex Turbo. Photo: Mick from Northamptonshire, England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
White 1988 MG Metro Turbo
A 1988 MG Metro Turbo. Photo: Kieran White from Manchester, England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Sierra was built to win touring car races, and it did. Robb Gravett won the 1990 British Touring Car Championship in an RS500, and Motor Sport magazine has calculated that the car won 84.6 per cent of the races it entered.

1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth with its large rear wing at the British Motor Museum
A 1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon. Photo: Vauxford, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Today: the turbo in almost everything

The turbo is no longer a badge to show off. It is simply how engines are made. Turbo-diesels grew steadily more popular from the late 1980s, and by 2014 they accounted for more than half of new car registrations in Europe.

Petrol engines followed, with small turbocharged engines doing the work of bigger ones. One of the best known has a British birthplace. Ford’s 1.0 litre three-cylinder EcoBoost was developed at its Dunton Technical Centre in the UK and went into production in April 2012. It has powered the Fiesta, the Focus and the Puma, and in 2016 it won its class at the International Engine of the Year awards for the fifth year running.

Ford 1.0 litre three-cylinder EcoBoost engine
Ford’s 1.0 litre three-cylinder EcoBoost engine. Photo: Ford Motor Company, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The latest step is the electrically assisted turbo, which pairs the exhaust turbine with an electric motor to cut lag. It began appearing in the early 2020s.

Turbo jargon, explained

  • Turbo lag. The delay between pressing the accelerator and the turbo building boost, while the exhaust spins up the turbine.
  • Intercooler. A radiator that cools the air after the turbo has compressed it.
  • Wastegate. A valve that limits how much exhaust reaches the turbine, so the turbo cannot make more boost than the engine can safely take.
  • Twin-turbo. Two turbochargers on one engine, working side by side or one after the other, to reduce lag or widen the range where they work.
  • Twin-scroll. A single turbo with two inlets that keep the exhaust from different cylinders apart, which improves response at low revs.
  • Variable geometry. Adjustable vanes inside the turbo that change how it behaves, cutting lag at low speed and improving efficiency at high revs.

Quick questions

Who invented the turbocharger? Alfred Büchi, a Swiss engineer, who patented the idea in 1905.

What was the first turbocharged car? The Chevrolet Corvair Monza and the Oldsmobile Jetfire, both launched in 1962. In Europe it was the BMW 2002 Turbo of 1973.

What was the first turbocharged Formula 1 car? The Renault RS01, which made its debut at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 16 July 1977.

What is turbo lag? The short delay between pressing the accelerator and feeling the extra power, while the exhaust gets the turbine spinning.

What came first, the supercharger or the turbo? The supercharger. Superchargers, driven by the engine itself, were already in use in the 19th century, decades before Alfred Büchi patented the turbo in 1905.

Was the Saab 99 Turbo the first turbocharged car? No. It came 16 years after the first turbocharged cars, but in 1978 it was one of the first family cars with a turbo.

Test yourself

Ten questions on this story. Try it now, then come back in a week and see what stuck.

Sources

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Mark Thompson
Mark Thompson

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