page_title: White and Poppe
section_title: "High speed" petrol engines, carburettors, gearboxes, clutches . . .
hierarchical_section_title: White and Poppe / History / "High speed" petrol engines, carburettors, gearboxes, clutches . . .
caption_attribution_description: English: section White and Poppe engine for Leyland Brothers 1915
context_page_description: White and Poppe Limited owned a Coventry proprietary engine building and gearbox manufacturing business established in 1899. Many early motor vehicle manufacturers making only a small number of vehicles bought in their major components and White and Poppe soon had a large customer base and by 1914 a staff of around 350 people. By then the number of these customers, once as high as 15 or more, had fallen away though not the production volume leaving Dennis Brothers, always an important customer, taking much of their output.
  Negotiations begun in 1914 culminated in the purchase of White and Poppe by Dennis Brothers in 1919. White and Poppe remained a distinct entity but during the Great Depression Dennis Brothers elected to reduce overheads by manufacturing its own engines in their Surrey works and source Diesel engines elsewhere and closed White and Poppe's operation, finally disposing of their Coventry buildings and unwanted plant and machinery in mid 1933.
context_section_description: White's partner, Peter August Poppe was designer and chief engineer. He and White and Poppe Limited jointly held many patents for inventions made by him.
  Prior to World War I they served the booming motor industry with their engines in such high demand that at the 1906 British International Motor Exhibition 15 different firms displayed automobiles with White and Poppe engines.
  By 1910 the White and Poppe carburettor was used by a large proportion of engine builders for motor boats, motorcars and aero engines. A variable jet provided a constant mixture. The petrol jet orifice and the air supply (throttle opening) were designed to cover the whole range of speeds.
  In August 1910 Autocar had noted that at the previous Olympia Motor Show one-third of the manufacturers exhibiting fitted White and Poppe carburettors as standard. In addition 12.25 per cent of the British cars shown were fitted with White and Poppe engines.
  "High speed" petrol engines
  The White and Poppe stand at the 1910 Olympia Motor Show was centred on their new 2.6-litre 16 hp (tax rating) four-cylinder engine. In operation it developed 24 hp when running at its normal speed of 1,150 revolutions per minute though of course the speed could be pushed up higher. Besides this engine there were ten other types of White 
  and Poppe engine ranging from 4 hp (tax rating) single cylinder to a 130 hp (tax rating) six-cylinder engine.
  The Autocar noted that the carburettors had performed so very well in the last competition season  there were only one or two minor modifications over the past 12 months.
  The first Morris Oxford used a White and Poppe engine, carburettor, clutch and gearbox.
caption: 1916 engine for Dennis Brothers
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