I am doing some research on the history of brake technology. I found a patent application that lists the 1954 Alfa Romeo Giulietta as the first car to have ventilated disc brakes. Does anyone know if that is true? If so, can you tell me anything else, like who invented the ventilated rotor, who holds the patent on it?
I am researching the history of brake technology. I found a patent application that lists the 1954 Alfa Romeo Giulietta as the first car with ventilated disc brakes. Does anyone know if that is true? If so, can you tell me anything else, like who invented the ventilated rotor, or who holds the patent on it?
AFAIK, the first Alfa production car with disc brakes (solid, and in the front only) was the 2600 model series introduced in 1962. The first time Alfa used vented discs in production cars was probably for the Alfa Montreal in 1971.
You'll find several threads about using Alfa 75/Milano Twinspark vented discs on older cars -- and how much of a pain performing such a conversion would be.
FWIW, there is no mentioning of vented disks in the 1999 (2nd) Edition of Don Black's Competition Reference Handbook. None of the homologation papers included in that book list vented disk brakes, but ARI's Performance Options catalog of Feb-1977 lists vented disk options for several models (but not Giulietta). Note the 10532 prefix for one of the vented discs, which would indicate this part was introduced with the 1965-69 GTA model.
The first I heard of them was in '64 or '65 when Ford put them on the GT40s at Le Mans. There was no claim that Ford or anybody connected with the GT40 project invented them, so I've wondered ever since where they originated. The Wikipedia page on disc brakes, and a few other sites claim that they were invented by Jesse G. Hawley who lincensed them to Goodyear for aircraft use. I have found no documentation to support that. There are also claims that the '49-'50 Crosleys were the first cars to use them. The Crosleys did use Hawley's disc brakes, but according to the guys in the Crosley club, they were not ventilated.
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