Bosch Automotive A product history

40 | Supplement 2 | Journal of Bosch History
Advertising brochure for
the Gutbrod Superior
(1952). The first car to
feature Bosch gasoline
injection was 20 percent
more economical than
its carburetor version.
Gasoline injection’s opportunity finally
arrived with the demands of aviation. The
commonly used carburetors were in danger
of icing up at altitude, of overflowing during
banking, and even of catching fire in unfavorable
circumstances. Gasoline injection,
by contrast, ensured greater reliability, as
well as more power. Correspondingly, it
became increasingly established from the
mid-1930s on. The first trials with BMW and
Daimler-Benz engines took place in 1932,
and the first 8-, 9-, and 12-cylinder pumps
went into series production from 1937.
gasoline injection offered. The designrelated
scavenging losses of as much as
20 percent of the fuel had long been an
annoying defect in standard two-stroke
engines. With its precise fuel metering, the
Bosch gasoline direct injection system for
cars – presented in a two-stroke Gutbrod
Superior 600 at the 1951 Frankfurt Auto
Show – used up to 20 percent less gasoline
and increased the output of the vehicle
from 22 to 27 horsepower. In the same year,
Goliath equipped its GP 700 with this
system.
Start of series production for cars
After the second world war, the Allied
authorities in Germany banned any further
development of such systems for aircraft
engines. It was for this reason that developers
now took a second look at gasoline
injection for passenger cars, and this time
their efforts were successful. While the
quest for reliability and power had driven
its development in aircraft engine design,
in the case of cars Bosch engineers were
above all motivated by the economies
Bosch, however, was focusing increasingly
on solutions for the four-stroke engines that
were to become dominant. From the 1950s
on, this engine design, which is standard
today, began to oust the simple two-stroke
engine. Engine performance was the main
selling point of the gull-winged Mercedes-
Benz 300 SL, the first series-produced
four-stroke vehicle with gasoline injection.
An indirect injection system for large-series
six-cylinder engines from Mercedes-Benz
was launched as an alternative to expensive