Usage History
The first known timing belt was used in 1954 in the Devin Sports Car that won the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) National Championship in 1956 (See May 1957 article in Sports Cars Illustrated, author O. C. Rich). Temple, Steve (2004). "Behold Your Timing Belt: Keeping the camshaft and crankshaft in sync". Know-How. Advance Auto Parts. Archived from the original on 2006-04-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20060413074241/http://www.advanceautoparts.com/english/youcan/html/ccr/ccr20020301tb.html. Retrieved 2006-06-09. - "In earlier engines, camshafts were often gear-driven off the crankshaft. Later, powerplant designers developed chain drives in OHV (overhead valve) configurations that allowed some flexibility in the placement of the camshaft so that shorter pushrods could be used, for more performance and efficiency. Those engines with long chains sometimes tended to whip about and cause problems. The only alternative was a noisy and complicated multi-gear train until the cogged rubber synchronous timing belt was invented by Bill Devin in 1954. In a little over a decade, it began to appear on production vehicles and eventually became our standard cam drive in everything from Volkswagen and Toyota, to Ferrari and BMW.
The German Glas 1004 was the first mass produced vehicle to use a timing belt in 1962. In 1966, Opel started production of the Slant Four overhead cam four-cylinder design which used a timing belt, a configuration that is now used in the vast majority of cars built today.
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