My friend says there is only one gasoline engine in the world with MOVING, INTERNAL, wooden parts. What is it?

Question

1/ What is the vehicle with the gasoline engine that has wooden, moving, mechanical parts?
2/ What is the name of the Engineer on the blueprints of the car and engine that has the wooden, internal, moving, parts?
Any car buff person out there who has a history of this car/engine and who designed it and why they chose to use wooden parts inside an engine in the first place?
Thanks for your help on this one !

Answer 1

There is only one vehicle with a moving wooden part - the original
Volkswagen had push rods made of wood. There was a coating of aluminum over the wood to protect it from the elements. This was in place up to about 1953, when the standard 36 Horsepower engine was upgraded to to the 40. The pushrods were changed at that point since the wooden push rods were keyed so that they would not rotate. This caused them to wear more rapidly than the newer version, which had a larger surface area, and are offset, so that the rotation spins the pushrods, giving a distributed wear pattern. The wooden parts are extremely light, and very strong ( think of Howard Hughes famous Spruce Goose, made of wood, and then, the largest aircraft ever made ).
The Volkswagen was made by Ferdinand PORSCHE ( yes, 'that' Porsche - the prestigeous sportscar ). Porsche first designed the concept in 1930, started a prototype in 1931 for a motorcycle company, and eventually built production vehicles for Adolf Hilter.

Answer 2

after reading this question a have done lots of resurtch and found nothing so far
but

if i was the first person to build a engine (knowing that it is not been done before) what would be easyer to test with steel or wood for me wood as it is easy to shape and cut for a test machine not to running for long at all you would need is for it to fire then you have somthing to work off

then you go steel and alluminion

but
as every engineer know the heat and pressure caused buy the engine is alot so you could us a very hard wood and it would last a bit longer may be 2 minutes before it burns through the sealing rings

or you friend is very good at telling storys so im like you i want to know more to

Answer 3

Although intriguing as it is, it's not possible.

The pressures created inside the combustion chamber would be to great for ANY wood to withstand.

The moving internal components would break quickly do to the inertia created by the power derived from combustion.

I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale..

Answer 4

I want some of what he's smoking also!!

wood will catch on fire and burn up in the combustion chamber when the spark plug ignites the fuel/air mix! so therefore it can't be the crankshaft, pistons, camshaft, piston rods, or valves.

Engines have been made of metal since the dawn of Henry Ford!

Answer 5

Your friend needs to sell some of that stuff to me. I would love to trip out like your friend.

Answer 6

Well you need to share that secret with us by asking your friend to answer the question !

Answer 7

sorry, i cant think of one single part that would be wood