Car Fact #58 — August 13, 2026

The Hotchkiss company’s 1930s inline-six engines achieved exceptional fuel economy through deliberately undersquaring cylinders (making them taller than wide), which reduced friction losses by lowering piston speeds more than the reduced RPM capability cost them in absolute power—a counter-intuitive principle so poorly understood by competitors that it remained a hidden competitive advantage until the engineering logic gradually became common knowledge decades later.