I remember reading on a 80's magazine about a road test of a Fiat Uno and a Ford Fiesta fitted with these 2 stroke Orbital engines... sad that eventually nothing came of it, would have loved a fuel injected modern 2 stroke engine in a car
Yes, Orbital did fit the 1200cc 'X' engine to a fleet of about 140 Ford Fiestas. I believe that most were provided to various Government departments and a number of them were also sent to the UK Police for road trials.
I remember when Ralph Sarich first got his name in the newspapers (1972) for inventing a new sort of car engine - the orbital engine - with fantastic claims - but no technical details were given. We were talking about it at work in an engineering company, trying to guess what 'orbital" could possibly mean. One of the chaps said he had lived next door to Sarich and drew a diagram of what he said it was. We all laughed and said he was telling porkies - no competent engineer would design such a silly engine that not only had poor combustion chamber shape and sealing problems, but would be expensive and time consuming to machine. A few months later drawings of the orbital engine were published in Wheels Magazine. Our workmate was 100% correct. Ralph Sarich was a 1970's version of Britisher J L Baird of mechanical television fame in the 1930's. Both were scam artists, masters of press releases, who cooked up schemes based on silly dead-end ideas that never the less got them bags of cash, which they then spent on hiring competent engineers who said in effect '"Your idea is really stupid and will never work, but here is what we can do with your money."
I remember reading on a 80's magazine about a road test of a Fiat Uno and a Ford Fiesta fitted with these 2 stroke Orbital engines... sad that eventually nothing came of it, would have loved a fuel injected modern 2 stroke engine in a car
Yes, Orbital did fit the 1200cc 'X' engine to a fleet of about 140 Ford Fiestas. I believe that most were provided to various Government departments and a number of them were also sent to the UK Police for road trials.
I remember when Ralph Sarich first got his name in the newspapers (1972) for inventing a new sort of car engine - the orbital engine - with fantastic claims - but no technical details were given. We were talking about it at work in an engineering company, trying to guess what 'orbital" could possibly mean. One of the chaps said he had lived next door to Sarich and drew a diagram of what he said it was. We all laughed and said he was telling porkies - no competent engineer would design such a silly engine that not only had poor combustion chamber shape and sealing problems, but would be expensive and time consuming to machine. A few months later drawings of the orbital engine were published in Wheels Magazine. Our workmate was 100% correct.
Ralph Sarich was a 1970's version of Britisher J L Baird of mechanical television fame in the 1930's. Both were scam artists, masters of press releases, who cooked up schemes based on silly dead-end ideas that never the less got them bags of cash, which they then spent on hiring competent engineers who said in effect '"Your idea is really stupid and will never work, but here is what we can do with your money."
who paid for all of this? did Obital even produce anthing?
...they simply sucked money out of thin air and sat around doing nothing for the last 45 years...! ...Go figure...🙄
The Mercury Optimax outboard motors, some Seadoo jet skis, Tohatsu outboards and Aprillia scooters used Orbital technology.