A time traveler from 50 years ago would find today's Formula 1 cars radically different, but would be equally surprised at the relative lack of change in engine technology. Turbochargers have come and gone and there hasn't been a switch to two-stroke or rotary, scotch yoke engines - let alone to gas turbines or something not even invented in 1950. The good old four-stroke internal combustion engine powered the very first Grand Prix car in 1906 and lives on in a form instantly recognizable by any time-traveling engineers from 1950.
What would impress them is the performance of the current breed of 3.0-liter naturally aspirated engine, that pumps out in excess of 260hp per liter, when in 1950, 80hp per liter was a competitive figure. With careful attention to breathing and the development of highly potent fuel-including the generous use of nitromethane-the 2.5-liter Vanwall of 1957 attained 120hp per liter as a "flash" dyno reading. Its more representative 115hp per liter race output-on a marginally less eye-watering (but still drag racing style) mix-was still then an all-time high for a naturally aspirated Formula 1 engine.
The following season exotic fuel was outlawed and, at a stroke, power outputs fell below 110hp per liter. However, Fl being Fl, they were soon creeping up again. Ten years on, development was such that, running on "pump" gasoline, 1967's Cosworth DFV produced 133hp per liter. Astonishingly, the current Cosworth 3.0-liter, Formula 1 engine, fed comparable fuel and likewise naturally aspirated, produces about twice that!
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