The Solely Twin-Engine Manufacturing Automobile Ever Was Constructed To Search For Oil

Twin-engine vehicles have at all times been an oddity within the automotive world, and it isn’t laborious to guess why you’ve got by no means seen a Dodge Charger with two V6s go into manufacturing, or a double-i4 Honda Civic. They’re dearer to construct, preserve, and refuel. Plus, the concept of packing two i4s right into a automotive when you might have had a V8 feels like a bunch of additional work for no actual reward.

However, simply because dual-engine vehicles by no means turned commonplace does not imply that no person ever tried placing them into manufacturing. The very best instance can be the 1961 Citroën 2CV Sahara, an revolutionary off-roader constructed by the French automaker to tackle desert terrain. This is what makes this such a bizarre, cool automotive.

A Look At The 1961 Citroën 2CV Sahara

The engines used within the 1961 Citroën 2CV Sahara had been a pair of horizontally-opposed flat-twos, the identical air-cooled two-cylinders discovered within the single-engine 2CVs. You will observe that, even with two motors in place, the efficiency specs are form of underwhelming by trendy requirements. Heck, they had been form of underwhelming by early-Nineteen Sixties requirements. This was extra of a desert-crawler than it was a dune-jumper like a Ford F-150 Raptor or an Ariel Nomad.

The engines every had their very own gearbox, they usually might be operated concurrently or independently, producing 12 horsepower every and getting as much as a pace of 40 mph on their very own, or 24 hp and 65 mph when mixed. You would change between one or two-engine mode with a lever located subsequent to the gear shift. On the dashboard, you’d discover two starter buttons, two chokes, and two ignition keys.

In adapting to the sandy, off-road terrain, the Sahara utilized a bigger set of tires than an ordinary 2CV, and it featured a skid plate to guard the undercarriage. The automotive in any other case appeared very similar to an ordinary 2CV, and weighed in at a surprisingly mild 1,620 lbs.

Why Two Engines?

What was Citroën doing constructing a dual-engine automotive? We’ll reply that query with one other one: what was Citroën doing within the Sahara, within the first place?

In 1956, France detected oil within the colonized area of the Algerian Sahara, and the Citroën 2CV was a preferred car for oil business employees on exploratory missions within the huge African desert. This had so much to do with the automotive’s low value. A 2CV within the mid-Fifties would price simply over a grand, or about $12,000, adjusting for inflation. It was additionally extraordinarily dependable and straightforward to work on.

Jeep was already producing civilian fashions by then, and Land Rover had been round since 1948, however in the event you needed to outfit an entire fleet of oilmen, the Citroën was a extra economical approach to go about it than shopping for everybody a large SUV. The excellent news was that the 2CV was already a fairly good off-roader. The Deux Chevaux Vapeur, very similar to the Beetle and Mini, had been designed to realize a set of objectives. The 2CV was constructed to hold 4 peasants (do not depart a nasty remark as a result of that is what Citroën’s bosses known as them) at 31 mph whereas utilizing not more than 30 mpg. It additionally needed to carry a basket of eggs on the entrance seat throughout a plowed discipline with out breaking one egg. So a gentle suspension with a great deal of wheel journey was already customary.

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So, in the event you’re Citroën, and you have prospects within the Sahara asking for four-wheel drive, how do you meet their wants with out having to develop an entire new four-wheel drive system from scratch? You add a second engine, hooking one as much as the entrance axle, and the opposite to the rear axle.

The Citroën 2CV Sahara was produced from 1960 to 1967, with 694 items rolling off the meeting line in that point. The French automaker was servicing a slightly small buyer base within the improvement of the Sahara, as there wasn’t a lot demand for an all-wheel 2CV outdoors of the desert, and holding prices down was important. The twin-engine setup allowed them to get the job executed with out having to double the worth or sink a bunch of time and sources into a distinct segment product.

As political tensions within the Sahara would warmth up into the Seventies, the political panorama would shift dramatically in that area, and France did not appear that involved in driving a peasant’s automotive round within the sand in search of oil anymore. The 2CV Sahara would finally go down as an interesting novelty, however not one thing that was actually supposed to be put to make use of past its authentic objective because the French oilman’s daily-driver.

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A Look Again At Twin-Engine Automobiles

The Citroën 2CV Sahara is the closest factor we now have to an instance of a contemporary manufacturing automotive with two engines, however Citroën was not the primary automaker to give you the concept of attaining four-wheel drive with a dual-engine setup. The Tempo G1200 beat the French firm to the two-engine 4WD utility car by greater than twenty years, launching theirs in 1937.

Constructed by Vidal & Sohn of Hamburg, the Tempo G1200 was primarily Germany’s reply to the Jeep, constructed for the German Military for all-terrain transport. Or slightly, the Jeep was America’s reply to the Tempo G1200, because the G1200 predates the Jeep by three years. The G1200 ran a pair of 600cc engines rated at 19 hp every, for a complete of 38 horses, and it even featured four-wheel steering.

Identical to with the C2V Sahara, that is form of a piddly horsepower ranking by trendy requirements, however, again within the WWII period, that was greater than sufficient to climb round within the scraggly woods of war-torn Europe. In truth, it was fourteen horses greater than the Sahara would handle to provide greater than twenty years later, so it will get some factors for being each the primary and strongest dual-engine automotive put into manufacturing.

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If you wish to return even additional, to the pre-war period and the early twentieth Century, yow will discover experimental automobiles just like the Carter Two-Engine Automobile, with a pair of four-cylinder 24-hp engines mounted facet by facet, constructed by Howard O. Carter in 1907 in order that he would have a backup engine ought to he expertise motor failure whereas out and about.

What you will not discover is a severe try at placing one in every of these vehicles into manufacturing. All through the entire historical past of the automotive business, the overwhelming majority of automotive corporations have appeared on the idea of the dual-engine automotive and mentioned “there must be a neater manner to try this.”

And, for essentially the most half, they have been appropriate. The Citroën Sahara was a intelligent, makeshift resolution to offering all-wheel efficiency with out sinking an excessive amount of money and time right into a undertaking supposed for a restricted market, however in the event you’re promoting to the mass market, a standard AWD system makes extra sense. Likewise, an eight-cylinder engine makes extra sense than two four-cylinder engines, and a six-cylinder engine makes extra sense than two inline-threes.