When it comes to intoxicating and amazing ads in olds 1960s muscle car and drag racing magazines two of them stand out. The first is of course Turbonique and the second is from the Latham Axial Flow company who manufactured one of the most advanced and awesome blowers of the 1960s, the Latham Axial Flow Supercharger. Unlike screw and Roots style superchargers that use inter locking pieces to compress the air and shove it down through the bottom of their respective cases, these are completely different.
Spun at tremendous RPM (like 15-20k) this blower uses a drum with hundreds of tiny fins to create an immense vortex and send it down through an opening at the rear of the supercharger and into the intake manifold. These blowers most commonly use four side draft style carbs but as you can see, this one is setup to use a pair of side drafts unlike the later models we just mentioned. That in itself makes it kind of interesting but is it enough proof to establish that it was the first one that the company ever built?
There were a few reasons that these pieces were very rare back in the 1960s and why they get lots of interest and attention today. The first is that because of the lack of today’s advanced machining techniques the hundreds of fins were welded to the spinning drum. Today it would be CNC machined out of billet. One can imagine what kind of stress said fins are under and what happens when one manages to work loose. Super expensive and potentially problematic are not exactly attributes that have your stuff flying off shelves.
All this being said, they are awesome and stand as one of the wildest speed parts of the 1960s. The Latham company still makes small superchargers for motorcycles and limited displacement engines in sports cars and stuff. The big claim here is that this is the first one that was ever made. It has the tag on it with the right numbers stamped in it.
Do you think it represents the birth of the company…or not?
Check out the photos and hit the link below to see the eBay ad for this awesome piece
