 Prosper L'Orange 4
We have already covered several stages of his professional life and also his working environment, but there are still a few things worth mentioning, especially those who benefited from his work and who
influenced the history of automotive technology in a remarkable way.
We have already described his studies and work as an assistant at the Technical University of Berlin until 1901. This was followed by a year of military service. After a brief period at the Princely Stolberg Iron
and Steel Office in Ilsenburg, he developed the antechamber at Deutz, which was later completed with the granting of a patent.
From the end of 1908, he served as chief engineer at Benz, in 1910 as head of the stationary engine department, and from 1912 onward, he was a member of the board of directors. He briefly served as a
soldier in 1914 and promoted the construction of submarine diesel engines. After the First World War, he supplemented his pre-chamber development with the patent for the funnel embedded in it.
| In 1909, Rudolf Diesel is said to have even visited the Benz company. |
A certain similarity with Ferdinand Porsche's career is unmistakable. As general directors, both struggled with the merger of Daimler and Benz. L'Orange resigned early, but both ultimately went into business
for themselves in Stuttgart.
Together with a Mannheim banker, he founded a pump and nozzle factory there. New patents also appeared there, one for fuel injection pumps. But while Porsche's company thrived, the two others were
unable to steer their company through the economic crisis.
Until today, we always believed and proclaimed that the diesel injection pump was invented by Bosch. From now on, we have to rewrite history and can probably say something similar about diesel engine
injectors.
We had to change our opinion about the invention of electronic fuel injection a little earlier, because the crucial preparatory work was apparently done by the American company Bendix. Bosch also claimed
Common Rail for itself, but here, too, it had acquired a company with corresponding patents and employees.
As early as 1900, Prosper L'Orange had founded a family, producing two sons and a daughter. Rudolf and Harro L'Orange continued their father's legacy. He died in 1939. We've already mentioned the awarding
of an honorary doctorate, but not the founding of the famous 'Motortechnische Zeitung' with Heinrich Buschmann.
His sons, Rudolf and Harro, founded "Gebrüder L'Orange Motorzubehör GmbH" in 1933, specializing in the development and manufacture of fuel injection systems. L'Orange GmbH remained family-owned until
1978 and was the world market leader in fuel injection technology for large four-stroke engines. Today, it is called Woodward L'Orange GmbH.
The company still operates under this name today, headquartered in Stuttgart, but has four locations in Germany. According to Wikipedia, it is one of the 'world's leading manufacturers of injection systems for
large diesel engines.' Before 2018, L'Orange was said to have belonged to Rolls-Royce Power Systems and, before that, to MTU in Munich.
Despite the sale of the patents to Bosch, the company had found its niche, as evidenced by its numerous patents. Around 1950, the company is said to have invented the pump-injector system together with
Maybach. Wikipedia also mentions that an MTU engine series with the system was ready for market one month before the first passenger car, an Alfa Romeo 156 JTD.
Finally, it's worth mentioning Prosper L'Orange's injection pump without stuffing boxes, as well as the injection valves, with fittings down to a hundredth (Bosch later even spoke of a thousandth), which perhaps
played the largest role in the finally realized controllability of the diesel engine.
Prosper L'Orange's work proved to be a stroke of luck for Mercedes. After the merger, his invention of the pre-chamber engine prevailed over Daimler's previously pursued approach. The result was years of Daimler-Benz
dominance in passenger car diesel engines, even against its main competitor, Peugeot.
For a long time, a taxi in Germany, for example, was only conceivable as a Mercedes diesel, not only because of its lower fuel consumption, but also because of its greater durability despite the many cold starts. In Spain,
the engine was even installed in the Seat 1500 taxi for customs reasons.
I personally drove an inherited 190 DC for a long time. Back then, I could still run on Dutch or Austrian fuel, making it unbeatably cheap. It never let me down. While it didn't yet have the fuel economy of the later VW Golf, it
was pleasantly quiet for a diesel.
| Book by Prosper L'Orange: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung der kompressorlosen Dieselmotoren (A
contribution to the development of compressorless Diesel Engines) (83 pages) |
| 
