the Bosch Magneto Ignition, it made the internal combustion engine feasible for powering the automobile. And due to the family tree project I'm working on, I found I'm related very distantly!

 

In 1897 a customer asked Bosch to customize a three-wheeler with a magneto ignition system. 

Robert Bosch tasked his factory manager, Arnold Zähringer, with finding a solution, which he delivered by making a fundamental design modification. 

Until then, the electrical energy had been generated through the rotation or oscillation of an armature wound in copper within a magnetic field. The technology was capable of providing ignition at 100 rpm

 Zähringer set it up so that a lightweight metallic sleeve surrounding the armature would rotate or oscillate instead, enabling a large number of ignition processes, sufficient in smaller, faster vehicle motors that operated at up to 1,000 rpm.

Jenatzy drove a Mercedes to victory in the Gordon Bennett Cup in Ireland in 1903 — thanks in part to the reliable Bosch ignition system, which stood up to the harshest conditions.

Bosch secretly supported the resistance against Adolf Hitler, and together with his closest associates saved victims of Nazi persecution from deportation.

He established his last will and testament in which he stipulated that the earnings of the company should be allocated to charitable causes.

His father ran a large progressive farm that included a brewery. 

His nephew was future Nobel laureate.

 On 24 May 1884, Bosch sailed for the United States, becoming an engineer under Thomas Edison and Sigmund Bergmann in New York. On 13 May 1885, Bosch sailed for London, where he found employment with Siemens Brothers. On 15 November 1886, he opened his own "Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering" in Stuttgart.

Bosch was greatly concerned about promoting occupational training. Prompted by his awareness of social responsibility, he was one of the first industrialists in Germany to introduce the eight-hour work day

Robert Bosch did not wish to profit from the armaments contracts awarded to his company during WWI. Instead, he donated several million German marks to charitable causes, including to the establishment of Stuttgart's Robert Bosch Hospital in 1940.

https://www.bosch.com/stories/bosch-magneto-ignition/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch

One of my ancestors, Henrik Bosch, 1493-1526 lived in Frankfurt, and Robert Bosch's ancestors were from the nearby Stuttgart area, though the efforts I've made in looking in Ancestry.com found that his ancestry haven't been thoroughy documented earlier than the late 1700s

Two cased Robert Bosch ZR6 magneto repair kits,

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24733/lot/292/?category=list&length=10&page=30

Sold for 10 thou  http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24733/#/aa0=4&MR0_length=90&w0=results&aj0=lot_number_asc&m0=0

This N.O.S. Spalding Flamethrower had Ed Iskenderian’s name on it, it was still in the box addressed to Isky’s shop, wrapped in newspaper from 1959

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/theres-race-car-hidden-inside-bare-metal-hemi-powered-1931-ford-model-coupe/#005-mcdougall-1931-ford-model-a-spalding-flamethrower-jpg

Joe Hunt, magneto distibutor and mag repair pioneer

was also a TWA flight engineer while running his business in magnetos

Popular Hot Rodding, 1963

Jay Leno brought his awe inspiring 1917 race car, the Botafogo Special, powered by a Fiat A12, 21.7 liter engine, to the Greystone Mansion concours!

for more photos and videos:

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/cars/fiat/1917-fiat-botafogo-special/index.shtml#item=234644 the video starts with a commercial, but it's incredibly informative. For example, I knew the engine had enormous displacement, but when Jay tells you that each cylinder is the equal of a Chevy 327... just one cylinder of this Fiat engine, 350 cu inches... that is a good reason to watch the video and learn from Jay all about this car and it's WW1 aircraft engine

Could probably reach speeds around 150 mph, but on dual chain drives, and only rear mechanical brakes... only gets about 1500 rpm, and would likely not sustain that for long before the block repair, the valves, the cam gear drive, the chains, or something failed horribly, and might be a suicide run. Better to just think about it at speed, than to experience it

built in Argentina,  because the owner was inspired by Mefistopheles, the land speed record (146mph) making car, fastest car in the world at the time,

http://sharonov.tumblr.com/tagged/1924

and last land speed record set on public roads... so the Argentinian sourced a similar engine, and had a car built. No transmission or brakes. Yeah, he died in the car, about 20 years later, but still.

Jay Leno arrived about 10:20 am, long after all the other vehicles, and it was so quiet that you could hear this rumble from the bottom of the hill, steadily getting louder as he pulled up into the parking lot, and everyone seemed to stop what they were doing and talking about to get over to where he came driving through. I turned to a couple guys nearby, and said "That is how you make an entrance"

Mefistofele is a famous Fiat, and you can see a photo, a painting, and learn about it in this post: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/02/just-cool-photography-thats-what-i-like.html or
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/06/mephistopheles-i-dont-think-ive-done.html
or
http://thechicaneblog.com/2010/03/04/art-appreciation-mefistofele and another at http://theoldmotor.com/?p=22586

 no power steering is my guess, and this is where they directed him to park? A testament to dedication to driving old cars. He didn't insist on an easy parking spot, or that the van get moved (though after he was parked it was moved so the crowd could see the Fiat and Jay)

 Though after parking, and not during the drive, Jay discovered that the brake cable fastener was loose, and the brakes wouldn't keep the car from rolling back. So he got busy fixing it. That isn't unusual in the least from the many accounts I've heard of Jay Leno, he works on his cars.

 and after getting the brake cable fasterner tightened up, he was quickly mobbed for interviews and photos.

 Jay was really nice and patient with all the well wishers that wanted their pictures taken with him, and it caused me to wonder how much he gets to enjoy a car show, when so many people request his attention.

 this car was located in Argentina 20-30 years or so ago. Jay talks about that in his video

that is a lot of shock absorber / friction dampeners. 2 per side, 4 total in front. normally you see one per side on old cars

here is the carb. It's bigger than the huge Holley on the Packard V16 that powered the PT boats in my post about the Nethercutt Museum

 That spotty area to the left of the magneto is the crankcase repair from the 1950's, still holding

 these are the parts controlled by the levers attached to the steering column (seen below)