Honeywell Turbo Technologies - History

History

John Clifford "Cliff" Garrett founded the Aircraft Tool and Supply Company in a one-room office in Los Angeles in 1936. In 1938 the company changed its name to Garrett Corporation, consolidating several companies into one with three divisions. The company produced aircraft turbochargers for the war effort in World War II, as well as avionics, environmental controls and other products.

Garrett Corporation (now part of Honeywell) manufactured its first turbochargers for ground vehicles in the 1950s, when it delivered 5,000 T-15 turbochargers for the Caterpillar company and formed AiResearch Industrial Division. The industrial division produced turbochargers for construction machinery, railroad locomotives, tractors, ships, powerplants and oil pipeline pumping stations. In the 1950s, the city of Los Angeles and other municipalities started using turbochargers in their sewage purification operations. By 1952, 20,000 turbocharged engines were in use in the US.

The T11 automotive turbocharger developed in 1960 expanded turbos to commercial vehicles such as the heavy trucks produced by Mack Trucks, Volvo and Scania. The first turbocharged passenger cars were the Chevrolet Corvair Monza and the Oldsmobile Jetfire in 1962/1963. In the 1960s turbochargers were used in race-cars and sports cars, gaining an association with racing culture and auto-enthusiasts. Company founder Cliff Garrett’s death in 1963 was followed by a hostile takeover threat by Curtiss-Wright Corporation. To avoid this, Garrett Corporation merged with Signal Oil and Gas Company in 1964. The combined company adopted the name The Signal Companies in 1968 before merging with Allied Corporation to become Allied-Signal Inc.

The oil crisis of the 1970s made federal regulators put pressure on car manufacturers to reduce exhaust emissions. By 1977 manufacturers introduced turbocharged cars in the US and Europe like the Buick Regal and LeSabre sports coupe as well as European cars by Volvo, Saab, Peugeot and Mercedes. In 1978 there were only eight turbocharged car models and seven used Garrett turbochargers. Garrett formed the automotive group in 1980 and by the mid-1980s there were over 100 turbocharged models. Turbochargers became commonplace by the 1990s.

In 1994, Allied-Signal acquired the Lycoming Turbine Engine Division of Textron followed by the sale of the Garrett Aviation Division to General Electric three years later. In 1999, it merged with Honeywell International Inc. and adopted Honeywell as the company name. In 2011, Honeywell sold its automotive Consumer Products Group to Rank Group, a New Zealand private investment firm, for $950 million. This included brands like Framfilters, Prestone antifreeze and Autolite spark plugs.

In the 2000s Honeywell’s turbochargers were installed in the engines of the Chevrolet Sonic, Mercedes S 350, Volkswagen Polo, BMW X6 ActiveHybrid, Ford F-350, Volkswagen Golf and Jaguar XF among others. In 2010 the company developed 15 new technologies for 100 new engines, including the world’s first use of ball bearing technology in a mainstream light vehicle diesel engine. Honeywell has developed the world’s smallest turbo for the Tata Nano as well as for the 100-liter engine of the Caterpillar mining truck.