posted: March 5th 2008
updated: July 20th 2010

Don Banky's
Hydraulic Car
1955



Mechanix Illustrated May 1955

Inventor's Miracle Car May
Revolutionize Auto Industry


Will This
Hydraulic Car
Revolutionize
Motoring?


by Sam Schneider

Americas's future automobile
may be this hydraulically-
driven, 100-mile-per-gallon
vehicle, says its inventor.





0N Nov 6, 1955, a boyishly slender resident of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will celebrate his 45th birthday. Around that time, too, America's auto buyers might posssibly be celebrating the fact that this stubbborn, forthright man wouldn't listen to high-domed engineers who scoffed - but went ahead and produced a car they said was impractical.

Some day the public may be riding around in the hydraulically-propelled auto invented by Daniel W. (Don) Banky, getting 100 miles per gallon with ease and cold-shouldering expensive motor over-hauls, repairs and upkeep.

If the foregoing sounds like the familiar fairy tale fed periodically to John Q. Driver, please don't flip the switch on us yet. It's true. This writer saw Banky's working model and drove it.

The photos on these pages show little, for they do not represent the likeness of any car. They merely show the raw skeleton Banky used in experiments with the hydraulic propulsive principle. This was his wheeled labratory on which he worked out his idea.

The completed car will look much like a conventional sports car, It will have an underslung chassis of aluminum tubing, surmounted by a three-seater, Fiberglas body. What is under the skin will be the big difference.

Banky's creation has no conventional radiator, transmission, clutch, or crankshaft. It eliminates some 8,000 parts pressently found in cars on the road. What, you may logically demand, does it run on?

Hydraulics - the science of fluid under motion - is the answer.

Hydraulic vehicles are not new of course. There is in operation at the pressent time a German bus with a hydraulic transmission system. Automotive engineers have long been aware of the possibility of using the principle to run automobiles. In fact, some experimental models of hydraulieally-operated cars have actually been built and driven.

But Banky's design is probably the first attempt in this country to produce a practical hydraulic automobile to compete with gas-driven cars. This is the set-up Banky has been working on:

A 4 horsepower air-cooled motor supplies the power for his vehicle. The motor is coupled directly to a Vickers aircraft hydraulic pump rated at 1,000 lbs. per sq. in. (PSI) This may sound like a lot, but it is possible to purchase surplus aircraft hydraulic pumps which deliver 5,000 lbs. PSI This is the type of pump used in large planes to lift and lower landing gear, operate flaps, bomb bay doors, etc.

... On a turn, the pressure in the line follows the path of least resistance through the T. If the car turns left, pressure shifts to the outer, or right wheel, causing it to go faster than than the inside wheel. And vice versa.

From the (T) "differential" two lines branch out, one to each wheel. On the auto frame, Banky used, he ripped out the whole rear axle, housing, etc. Now, each drive line enters a small Vickers aircraft oil motor; each motor is hooked up to an adapter Banky made to his own specifications. The adapter on each wheel turns a short, Banky made axle, which of course turns the wheel.

Perhaps the most vital piece of machinery in the entire assemblage is this adapter. This is the element which converts the power derived from the spinning oil motor into torque to drive the axle.



(click images for full story)

 


   




this "forgotten/lost" article is provided by Stuart King of Johannesburg, South Africa
Thank you, Stuart








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Mike Blood's
Hydraulic dragster