Diesel's Engine
Diesel's Engine
ITEM 261AP
By C. Lyle Cummins Jr.
This is a reprint of Diesel's Engine, first published in 1993. The book is a fantastic resource for serious fans of engine evolution and a great read as well. If you are interested in how the combustion engine came to be, this book and its companion, Internal Fire, are vital reading. We at Octane Press believe it to be a critical piece of automotive history and are happy to have a revised edition to offer to our readers.
C. Lyle Cummins Jr. continues his series on the internal combustion engine's heritage in Diesel's Engine. This engaging book is a fascinating and comprehensive history of the diesel engine, written by the son of Cummins Engine Co. founder, Clessie Cummins.
This is a companion book toInternal Fire: The Internal Combustion Engine 1673-1900and covers in dramatic detail the entire sweep of Rudolf Diesel's original ideas: the struggles to perfect the diesel engine, and the creation of an international industry that brought the world's most efficient motor to market. Illustrated with black and white photos and period line drawings, this is a must-read for any serious enthusiast for engine and transportation technology.
Cummins is uniquely qualified to tell the diesel story. Raised in the family of America's automotive diesel pioneer, his career as a mechanical engineer includes the design, development and marketing of diesel engine retarders and fuel systems for which he was granted five US patents. He has received several notable awards for his writings on I-C engine history. Cummins has devoted over two decades exhaustively researching his subject in corporate and museum archives throughout Europe and the United States to provide this definitive history of the diesel.
Sftbd., 774 pgs., 6 × 9 × 2 in
Recognize the last name of the author of Diesel’s Engine? C. Lyle Cummins Jr. is the son of Cummins Engine Co. founder Clessie Cummins Sr., the entrepreneur and inventor who pioneered the development of the diesel engine for use in trucks, cars, and, of course, tractors in the United States. Diesel’s Engine, originally published in 1993 and offered by Octane Press in 2022, continues the author’s history of internal combustion engines that he began with Internal Fire published in 1976. As the publisher notes, since the author “grew up immersed in the evolution of this technology, it is not surprising that this book covers in dramatic detail the entire sweep of Rudolf Diesel’s original ideas.” Replete with photographs, line drawings, footnotes, and an extensive bibliography, the imposing 2-inch-thick, nearly 800-page paperback may put off the casual reader, but that would be a mistake. Cummins offers a readable history—perhaps “biography” is a better term—of both the diesel engine and Rudolph Diesel based on over two decades of research in archives in Europe and the United States. While a story of significant technological achievement, it is also a personal tragedy ending with Diesel’s possible suicide in 1913.
Book Review by Robert Gabrick
