Chicago Auto Show: Best Cutaways of the Show

by Alex L. Dykes

Published: February 8th, 2013

chicago auto show best cutaways of the show

What is the best part of a modern auto show? It’s not the constant running from one press release to another. It certainly isn’t fighting your way to the front of the throng to get some blurry photos of the latest sports car. It isn’t even the airport-grade lunches and cheap booze. No, it’s the cutaways. Nowhere else will you find the sheer quantity and quality of mechanical cutaways as an auto show. There are engine cutaways, transmission cutaways, and cutaways of entire vehicles. Click past the jump to see 28 of our favorites from the Chicago Auto Show.

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Alex L. Dykes

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Darkhorse on Feb 09, 2013

Best cutaway engine in the world is at the Edvard-Hazy Smithsonian Aviation Museum in Dulles Virginia. The Pratt & Whitney R-4360 radial aircraft engine. It's a 4 row, 28 cylinder aircooled engine displacing 71.5 liters! Over 4000 HP. Used in many military and civil transports between 1945 and the advent of the jet age. It's amazing to me that the engineers that designed this complex machine did not have computers, just slide rules and log-log paper.

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- Nikita on Feb 12, 2013
  
  The Convair B-36 had six of them, buried in the wings in a pusher configuration. Do the math, a "tuneup" consisted of changing two spark plugs per cylinder, 28 cylinders per engine. Now, imagine doing this outdoors at a SAC base in Alaska. P&W had lots of test cells. Without computers, prototype engines were built and usually exploded. Redesign the failed part, rinse and repeat. Once in production, they rarely lasted very long in service. The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser airliner was nicknamed the Boeing Tri-motor, because it often arrived with only three of the four 4360's still turning.
  
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GS650G on Feb 09, 2013

what happens to these cutaways? Someone would love to buy one for a man cave.

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- Ronnie Schreiber on Feb 10, 2013
  
  GM has engines, intact and cutaway in their Heritage Center so I assume most of them are kept by the companies. I'm sure that the specialty shops that make the cutaways will be happy to take your money and make you one. Two of the leading cutaway fabricators, Webb and Sterling Performance, are in southeastern Michigan. I sent each of them a request for media access and I hope to do a story about how they make these amazing displays.
  
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