By Karl Ludvigsen
2025 review by Autolycus
This book review spent a good five weeks in our News column — because the publication of this work by Karl Ludvigsen was truly newsworthy.
This book is a massive undertaking. It has 1,960 pages in three jacketed hardback volumes in a slipcase. The total word count is 665,000, across 46 chapters. Each volume deals with a critical period in the development of supercharging and turbocharging. Even before opening, the back of each dust jacket gives some idea of the most important personalities covered, by displaying portrait photographs of 16 of them.
The detail within is astounding. Naturally, the story is brought alive by thorough histories of each inventor, engineer or entrepreneur and how they came to make their contribution. And, as would be expected from Karl Ludvigsen, there is always a full technical description of each step forward in super- or turbocharging, the way in which it works, why it advanced the technology, what challenges arose and how these were overcome. This depth of explanation can be highly complex and would perhaps be fiendishly difficult to follow — if it were not for the superb drawings and photographs that accompany the text. The page size, 270 x 210mm, allows those images to be large enough to show the necessary detail and to be alongside the text to which they refer. Time and time again, your reviewer muttered to himself “I sort of understand, but what does it look like?” — only to cast an eye over to a drawing (often from the original manufacturer, and equally often from patent applications where clarity was essential), a graph or a photo and muttered “Oh, I see…” This is considerably aided by a clever method of linking captions to the images with arrows that point to the relevant drawing or photo, making numbering or “Top left…” etcetera totally unnecessary. Another method allows the story to move on smoothly. Additional information is referred to by a superscript number, and that information appears at the bottom of the same column. It works beautifully. Credit is due also to the clarity of the writing. The renowned editor Mark Hughes has clearly weaved his magic to make sure that the text is concise, accurate, consistent in its rules and mercifully free of typos. (There are some, but they are tiny and infrequent). As befits a publication by EVRO, all the text is in British English, but Mark Hughes has thankfully allowed Ludvigsen’s own inimitable style of writing (few commas, and sometimes an American way of saying things) to show through.
Ludvigsen is renowned for his ability to make clear the complex and the highly technical, and, aided by the quality of editing and graphic design mentioned above, it is almost certain that even the non-technical reader will be able to follow the story. And that story rattles along at a rapid pace. For example, chapter 10 “High-Pressure Teutons” and chapter 11 “Ultimate Boosted Germans” tell the story of the trials, tribulations and ultimate successes of the Silver Arrows, as Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union pushed each other to achieve unheard of outputs with the use of supercharging in lightweight machines, culminating in a stunning and “impossible” victory in the 1939 Tripoli Grand Prix. New regulations for Italian racing were announced on 11 September 1938 and two completely new 1½-litre V-8 W165 cars came 1st and 2nd at Tripoli on 7 May 1939. It reads like an action thriller.
It would be impossible in this review to even list the chapter headings, never mind describe the content of each chapter, but here are very brief summaries of the theme of each volume.
VOLUME 1: RUSHING TOWARD THE RACING ZENITH, 1890s to 1950s
This volume introduces the pioneers who first applied supercharging to increase power output on land and in the air, and how they and their successors achieved success in racing and in passenger cars from piston-type, Roots-type, centrifugal, screw and vane blowers, and from exhaust-driven turbocharging. Famous companies fought to be first in applying blowers to beat the opposition, from Fiat and Mercedes to Alfa Romeo and Sunbeam, and many more.
VOLUME 2: WARTIME BOOST TO FORCED INDUCTION, 1930s to 1970s
Here, the focus is upon the massive strides made in supercharging and turbocharging in World War II by the Allies and the Axis powers. The volume continues with the application of wartime advances to aircraft, to the road and to the racetrack.
VOLUME 3: TURBO TRIUMPHS ON ROAD AND TRACK, 1970s to 2020s
This volume brings the story right up to the present day, with chapters on the application of turbochargers to petrol and diesel engines to improve performance and efficiency for racing, for sports cars and for the everyday family machine.
The book’s price of £395 is not cheap, but it is superb value for money considering the quality and quantity of information contained within it. If you can dig into your pocket to add it to your bookshelf, you will not be disappointed.
Publisher: EVRO Publishing https://www.evropublishing.com/
Price: £395 plus postage
Description: Three hardback volumes with dust jackets, in a slipcase. 270mm x 210mm, 1,960 pages (1 x 688, 1 x 664, 1 x 608), 3,584 images, in black & white and colour.
ISBN: 978 1 910505 37 3
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