Car Engines
In 1904, at the end of his first year, he decided to enter the University Automobile Club's event, which was a competition to design a machine that could travel the furthest on an 1 imp qt (1.14 l) of petrol. His engine was a single cylinder one and the heaviest entered, but his motorcycle design nevertheless won the competition, having covered a distance of 40 miles (64 km). He was then persuaded to join the Professor of Mechanism and Applied Mechanics, Bertram Hopkinson, working on research into engine performance. He graduated with a degree in 1906 and spent a further year researching at Cambridge.
Ricardo is said by Percy Kidner, then Co-Managing Director of Vauxhall, to have had a hand in the design of the Vauxhall engine designed by Laurence Pomeroy for the RAC 2,000 miles (3,200 km) trial of 1908.
Before graduation, Ricardo had designed a two-stroke motorcycle engine in order to study the effect of mixture strength upon the combustion process. When he graduated, a small firm, Messrs Lloyd and Plaister, showed an interest in making the engine. Ricardo produced designs for two different sizes, and the smaller one sold about 50 engines until 1914, when the war halted production.
In 1909 he designed a two-stroke 3.3 litre engine, for his cousin Ralph Ricardo, who had started up a small car manufacturing company, “Two Stroke Engine Company”, at Shoreham-by-Sea. The engine was to be used in a car called the Dolphin. The cars were well made but it became apparent that they were costing more to make than the selling price. The company had better luck making two-stroke engines for fishing boats. However, in 1911 the firm folded and Ralph left for India. Ricardo continued to design engines for small electric lighting sets, that were produced by two companies up to 1914.
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