Weber Carburetor - History

History

Edoardo Weber (1889–1945) began his automotive career working for Fiat, first at their Turin plant (in 1914) and later at a dealership in Bologna. After the war, with gasoline prices high, he reached a certain success in selling conversion kits for running trucks on kerosene instead. The company was established as Fabbrica Italiana Carburatori Weber in 1923 when Weber produced carburetors as part of a conversion kit for Fiats. Weber pioneered the use of two-stage twin barrel carburetors, with two venturis of different sizes, the smaller one for low speed running and the larger one optimised for high speed use.

In the 1930s Weber began producing twin-barrel carburetors for motor racing where two barrels of the same size were used. These were arranged so that each cylinder of the engine has its own carburetor barrel. These carburetors found use in Maserati and Alfa Romeo racing cars. Twin updraught Webers fed superchargers on the 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C competition vehicles.

After Weber's death in 1945, Fiat finally assumed control of the company in 1952. In time, Weber carburetors were fitted to standard production cars and factory racing applications on automotive marques such as Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, BMW, Chrysler, Ferrari, Fiat, Ford, Lamborghini, Lancia, Lotus, Maserati, Morgan, Porsche, Renault, Triumph and Volkswagen.

In 1986, Fiat also took control of Weber's competitor Solex, and merged the two into a single company (Raggruppamento Controllo Motore, or the "Engine Management Group"). This was then reorganized as Magneti Marelli Powertrain S.p.A. in 2001. Genuine Weber carburetors were produced in Bologna, Italy up until 1992, when production was transferred to Madrid, Spain, where they continue to be produced today.

Weber Carburetors are sold for both street and off-road use, with the twin choke sidedraught DCOE being the most common one. They are sold in what is referred to as a Weber Conversion kit. A Weber conversion kit is a complete package of Weber Carburetor, intake manifold or manifold adapter, throttle linkage, air filter and all of the necessary hardware needed to install the Weber on a vehicle.

In modern times, fuel injection has replaced carburetors in both production cars and most modern motor racing, although Weber carburetors are still used extensively in classic and historic racing. They are also supplied as high quality replacements for problematic OEM carburetors. Weber fuel system components are distributed by Magneti Marelli, Webcon UK Ltd, and, in North America, by several organizations, including Worldpac, marketing under the Redline name. Other suppliers include Overseas Distributing and Pierce Manifolds.