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Most internal combustion engines are either straight or in a 'V' - this motor had pistons in all directions.

Unless you have an interest in mechanics, or aviation, you may not know that engines were not always inline or in a ‘V’.

In fact, for a while some of the most successful engines outside of cars were aligned in a circle: radial engines.

Some of these radial engines did find their way into obscure cars, but on the whole, they were designed for flying – sadly, no mass-produced supercars ever came with a radial engine.

While we already featured the Wärtsilä, an apartment-block-sized engine with 108,000 hp that was designed for a container ship, this unit is much more compact and no bigger than a Mini at 2.5 meters long.

It’s the Wasp Major – the biggest and most powerful radial engine produced in America, and second to only the turbojet.

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As a radial engine, the Wasp Major had a central crankshaft with pistons radiating out from different angles, unlike in a horizontally aligned engine where the pistons are all on the same line facing the same way.

While straight engines have existed since the beginning, the radial design worked well for a few reasons.

It could be cooled efficiently by the airflow from the front, with all cylinders receiving the same air – this air-cooling is also beneficial because in battle situations, there is no critical liquid cooling system (that could lose its functionality from just one bullet or shrapnel hole).

The crankshafts are shorter, there are fewer parts and the engines are inherently lighter too.

For the Wasp, there were 28 cylinders total, in 4 rings of 7 cylinders.

Displacement was up at 4362 ci – or 71 liters, the piston travel or stroke was 6-inches long and the whole unit weighed around 3900 lbs, about the same as a crossover SUV.

Power was good, in the top version the engine made around 4300 hp thanks to not just one, but two turbochargers and a supercharger.

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Designed to power anything from a bomber to a freighter to a passenger plane, the Wasp Major, unfortunately, didn’t make its way into combat in the way it might have done.

Instead, it powered (or was supposed to power) many military prototypes, and was used in some aircraft including the Guppy – a massively-inflated airliner like the Airbus Beluga for carrying large, heavy cargo.

With almost four times the power of a Tesla Model S Plaid, the Wasp would have created a lot of thrust when implemented in 2, 4, or 6 sets to power strategic bombers or passenger aircraft.

In the end, most of its proposed applications didn’t come to fruition or missed WW2 completely, so it didn’t get the exposure it might have done a few years earlier.

Along with the Wankel engine, it is an interesting variation of the combustion engine, which unfortunately faded out of use when far superior jet turbine engines appeared on the scene from the 40s onwards.

Just like the radial engine, the jet engine also tried and failed to revolutionize the car, so we stuck with the straight ICE engine until there really was a revolution – the EV age.

Hailing from Britain, the home of both MG and Aston Martin, Dave is no stranger to sports cars. Or a little rain. When he's not busy working his day-job or writing songs and pretending to be a musician; Dave indulges his obsession with cars by writing and researching diligently, so that he can inform and convert other people to the dark side.