OK, I will hit a few of the points mentioned above. I think those who have read some of my previous posts will see that I do put a lot of thought into these things and for the most part (but perhaps not entirely) don't speak/type out of my as…

First, the fundamental one: A poster claimed that the US auto industry did not introduce innovations. That is not true. Does anyone disagree with that point? If the original quote, “Holy crap! Innovation by an American car company!” was meant to imply the US gets more credit than it perhaps deserves, I certainly didn’t catch that. Perhaps I missed something but it does seem to imply the poster doesn’t think the US has contributed to the field of automotive engineering. Again, much like I feel my history of posts might buy me the benefit of doubt (Mantra, though I have disagreed with you in the past, I certainly have seen enough to know I would never dismiss any claim of yours without through investigation).

Second, we seem to want to go around and around about what is innovative. Personally, I would say anytime a company/person/group does something that advances the state of the art that is innovative. Being the first to blaze a trail can be innovative even if the technology existed else where. You would be the one who figures out if it will work here (GM and turbos). You would also be the one to figure out the hidden pitfalls. Sometimes it being the one who comes out with some breakthough bit of knowledge that allows the industry to move forward. In the case of Firestone and the air springs one critical bit of knowledge was how to make them. They didn’t invent the concept but they were the ones to solve the critical pieces of the puzzle. Thus the state of the air could change because of them. Again, innovation.
Sometimes it’s the first to do something no one else has done. The electric starter would be an innovation.
I did not claim that others didn’t innovate. SAAB and Porsche certainly did more than probably any other companies to get turbos on the road. And of course, we can debate the scale of the impact. In the case of the turbo, GM can claim a first and certainly provided knowledge for others to build on. The Europeans clearly did much of the ground work needed to solve the problems that GM ran illustrated with their early implementations. Either way I would call GM’s introduction an innovation thus include it in a list of US auto innovations. If you disagree with my definition of innovation I would be happy to entertain an alternative one. It’s entirely possible your definition would change or narrow my list.

Turbo: Yes, it had been done in aircraft. To implement it in a car you need to address several issues. The first being shrinking the turbo. Aircraft turbos in the late ‘40s and ‘50s were quite large. They also didn’t use a scroll type impeller, instead they used a turbine wheel that looks kind of like an small axial flow compressor on a jet. Scaling down the cost and size of a turbo was not a simple task. What is cost effective on an aircraft may not be cost effective on a car.
Turbo lag is the other issue GM had to attempt to address. Throttle response is not an issue in aircraft engines the way it is in a car.
You also have maintenance, the car’s operational cycle (start, run, shut off with no special procedures). The level of “consumer proofing” required for a car is much different than for an aircraft. The fact of the matter is GM did it first. I don’t see how this can be dismissed as non-innovative. Even if their implementation wasn’t used by later designers, later designers can benefit from the knowledge gained by GM’s work. They helped advance the use of turbos, I would call that innovation.

Riding on Air: The author worked for Firestone among other companies. For a while he actually worked for several of Firestone’s competitors. While I would agree that his time at Firestone might make him a biased source, he was also an insider and knew a great deal about the technology. Unless you have read the book it might be a bit premature to assume bias though your suspicion does indicate healthy skepticism.
Gieck described some of the key innovations that separate modern air springs from the early designs. One came out of Firestone in the 1930s. An engineer at Firestone mathematically calculated the exact angle you need to wrap the cords in a pneumatic hose so that the pressure inside will not cause the hose to expand in diameter or length. He was also able to characterize how much the hose would expand or contract when pressure was applied. Although it wasn’t understood at the time, this was a critical breakthrough in the development of air suspension. Early air springs were either a series of torrid shapes sitting on top of each other or they were tubes with rolling ends and metal reinforcing bands around their midsections. Firestone engines were the first to come out with an air spring that didn’t require a reinforcing band (their were many shapes). The air spring configuration seen on heavy trucks as well as on all modern passenger cars was invented by Firestone. Others may have tried different designs in the past but all are currently using a design first introduced by Firestone.

The other link: I did put a disclaimer on it from the start.


PS, was the new W&G movie good?