By Dan Cooper
In America, "Hemi" means Chrysler. But that's not always how it has been. Because of their technical superiority, hemispherical heads have brought success and fame to Jaguar, BMW, Peugeot, Franklin and Welch, among others.
Every once in a while another car company comes along to "discover" the benefits of hemispherical combustion chambers. With great fanfare they usher in a new model, or at least a new engine in their model line-up. Their new engine is a revolutionary development, in that it "introduces" the hemispherical combustion chamber.
Chrysler received a lot of credit for originating the hemi. (When spelled with an upper case 'H,' the word is a registered trademark owned by Daimler-Chrysler. It was first used in this capacity in connection with the 426 Hemi.) Chrysler's first hemi V-8 was a tremendous development in the American automotive market, creating an immediate stir as well as a long lasting impression. That impression was indelibly etched on the minds of Chrysler's racing competitors at the time. The hemi was a superior engine, and everybody knew it. Most of them knew it from watching all the other cars ineffectively chasing Chrysler cars around various NASCAR tracks.
Why American manufacturers took so long to catch on to the advantages of hemi heads, is a mystery. Chrysler's introduction of a mass market hemi, and the beginning of their resulting domination on American race tracks, came as late as 1951. But in Europe, the racing world had been dominated by those using the hemi head since the 1920's. The first team to dominate the competition because of a hemi engine came a decade earlier still.
The fame and fervor that surrounded the Chrysler hemi in America in the 1950's, was similarly known in Europe as early as 1912, when Peugeot introduced their "revolutionary" hemi racing engine. As was the case in America 40 years later, the Peugeot hemi blew away the competition. In so doing, it established the European standard for racing engines.
Probably in reaction to Peugeot's success, Chrysler had also been experimenting with hemi heads since the 1920's. In 1924 they had a six-cylinder L-head engine with hemispherical combustion chambers. But for some reason, the development of this concept would wait until the 1951 hemi V-8 took center stage.
General Motors and Ford Motor Company each had opportunities to develop the hemi concept. But Chrysler trumped them with the "new innovation," after years of research and development.
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