John Zachary DeLorean, who died March 19 at age 80, was described by the Washington Post as “credited with creating the overhead-cam engine, concealed windshield wipers, the lane-change turn signal, vertically stacked headlights, racing stripes and an emphasis on cockpitlike driver
consoles.”
Well, if DeLorean truly created the overhead cam it was news to Peugeot, Stutz and Crosley, all of whom had overhead cams well before Pontiac’s 1966 six-cylinder engine. Pontiac was noteworthy for its belt-driven cam, but even that was not groundbreaking – a timing belt had appeared in 1962 on the German-built Glas S1004. DeLorean’s overhead cam was clearly a case of evolution, not creation.
Pontiac’s cammer was conceived not for performance, but for an air-cooled engine concept. In order to get better heat transfer, DeLorean wanted to use liquid-filled fins on the block, and an overhead cam was a means of dispensing with pushrods, which would have obstructed air flow. Air cooling was dropped, but the belt-driven cam, developed in conjunction with Uniroyal, stayed. The cammer became the base engine for the 1966 Tempest. Although having the same bore and stroke as the pushrod Chevrolet six, the Pontiac engine shared only its crankshaft.
A version with a Rochester Quadrajet and dual exhausts was rated at 207 bhp, and became the heart of a “Sprint” version of the Tempest, though no threat to the already-legendary GTO. Little known, however, is the fact that Pontiac engineers experimented with overhead cams for V8 engines, including a novel arrangement with a belt at the rear.
To what extent did John DeLorean “invent” these features? No doubt many other engineers were involved, but included in the more than 200 patents that DeLorean claimed are disclosures for the ohc six’s distributor and accessory drive, which incorporates the belt tensioner, and the rear mounted belt drive on the V8. DeLorean’s official obituary says “[e]very car built in the world today contains at least one of his creations.” What DeLorean creations does your car have?
