Visitors to this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in England will get a rare chance to see Cummins’s No. 8 Duesenberg race car, which completed the Indianapolis 500 in 1931. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 500, the thundering oil burner will be one of a number of Indy cars displayed in the Formula One paddock at Goodwood.
Powered by a Cummins 100hp Model U diesel engine, the No. 8 was the first car to complete the 500-mile race without stopping, and it used only $1.40 worth of fuel. It was also the first diesel car to go faster than 100 MPH at Daytona Beach in Florida.
Interestingly, this won’t be No. 8′s first trip across the pond. Following its Indy 500 success, Clessie Cummins took the car on a tour of Europe in the early 1930s to drum up interest in his company and its products. Footage still exists of the car running around the famous Brooklands circuit in Surrey.
After the tour, Cummins incorporated his latest engineering developments in two cars that he entered into the 1934 Indy 500. The No. 5 car was fitted with a two-stroke engine, and the No. 6 car with a four-stroke engine. The cars set 12 different world records in the race, including highest speed and best finish for a diesel-powered car. The four-stroke proved more dependable, efficient and more powerful than the two-stroke variant, and the company stands by Clessie Cummins’s decision to abandon the two-stroke to this day.
The next landmark came in 1950, when the Cummins No. 61 Green Hornet went on to become the world’s fastest diesel, running 165 MPH on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah after competing at Indianapolis. The 340hp racing version of the JBS-600 engine with supercharging and new Cummins Pressure Time fuel injection set diesel speed records over one, five and 10 miles.
Following on from this success, Cummins Diesel Special No. 28 created a sensation at Indy in 1952, with a 139 MPH track record. It also took the coveted pole position, the first by a diesel car. The streamlined racer had a 430hp, low-profile JBS-600 engine and was the first at Indy with turbocharging. Unfortunately, damage forced No. 28 to retire after 100 miles when it was on pace with the race leaders. It did, however, prove the effectiveness of using turbocharging on diesel engines. The No. 28 car ran at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2000 and can be seen in the company’s museum at the head office in Columbus, Indiana.
The No. 8 Duesenberg is currently housed in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s museum. It was previously shown at the 2008 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.