Though He Was Famous And Respected

Serbian-American engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) made dozens of breakthroughs in the production, transmission and application of electric power. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology. Though he was famous and respected, he was never able to translate his copious inventions into long-term financial success鈥攗nlike his early employer and chief rival, Thomas Edison. Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox church and his mother managed the family鈥檚 farm. In 1863 Tesla鈥檚 brother Daniel was killed in a riding accident. The shock of the loss unsettled the 7-year-old Tesla, who reported seeing visions鈥攖he first signs of his lifelong mental illnesses. During the 1890s Mark Twain struck up a friendship with inventor Nilola Tesla. Twain often visited him in his lab, where in 1894 Tesla photographed the great American writer in one of the first pictures ever lit by phosphorescent light. Tesla studied math and physics at the Technical University of Graz and philosophy at the University of Prague.

In 1882, while on a walk, he came up with the idea for a brushless AC motor, making the first sketches of its rotating electromagnets in the sand of the path. Later that year he moved to Paris and got a job repairing direct current (DC) power plants with the Continental Edison Company. Two years later he immigrated to the United States. Tesla arrived in New York in 1884 and was hired as an engineer at Thomas Edison鈥檚 Manhattan headquarters. He worked there for a year, impressing Edison with his diligence and ingenuity. 50,000 for an improved design for his DC dynamos. After months of experimentation, Tesla presented a solution and asked for the money. Edison demurred, saying, 鈥淭esla, you don鈥檛 understand our American humor.鈥?Tesla quit soon after. 2 a day, Tesla found backers to support his research into alternating current. In 1887 and 1888 he was granted more than 30 patents for his inventions and invited to address the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on his work.

Westinghouse hired Tesla, licensed the patents for his AC motor and gave him his own lab. In 1890 Edison arranged for a convicted New York murderer to be put to death in an AC-powered electric chair鈥攁 stunt designed to show how dangerous the Westinghouse standard could be. Buoyed by Westinghouse鈥檚 royalties, Tesla struck out on his own again. But Westinghouse was soon forced by his backers to renegotiate their contract, with Tesla relinquishing his royalty rights. In the 1890s Tesla invented electric oscillators, meters, improved lights and the high-voltage transformer known as the Tesla coil. He also experimented with X-rays, gave short-range demonstrations of radio communication two years before Guglielmo Marconi and piloted a radio-controlled boat around a pool in Madison Square Garden. Together, Tesla and Westinghouse lit the 1891 World鈥檚 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and partnered with General Electric to install AC generators at Niagara Falls, creating the first modern power station.

In 1895 Tesla鈥檚 New York lab burned, destroying years鈥?worth of notes and equipment. Tesla relocated to Colorado Springs for two years, returning to New York in 1900. He secured backing from financier J.P. Morgan and began building a global communications network centered on a giant tower at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island. But funds ran out and Morgan balked at Tesla鈥檚 grandiose schemes. Tesla lived his last decades in a New York hotel, working on new inventions even as his energy and mental health faded. His obsession with the number three and fastidious washing were dismissed as the eccentricities of genius. He spent his final years feeding鈥攁nd, he claimed, communicating with鈥攖he city鈥檚 pigeons. Tesla died in his room on January 7, 1943. Later that year the U.S. Supreme Court voided four of Marconi鈥檚 key patents, belatedly acknowledging Tesla鈥檚 innovations in radio. The AC system he championed and improved remains the global standard for power transmission.

Originally the V12 was intended for the XJ saloon, but in 1968 Technical Director William Heynes pushed for the V12 engine to be used in the E-type. The shoehorning of the V12 into the E-type became project XJ25. The XJ25 was launched in March 1971 as the Series 3 Jaguar E-type and became the first car to use the new 5343cc V12 engine. The V12 was fitted with four Zenith Stromberg 175CD carburetors and was rated at 314bhp (SAE) at 5850 rpm, but by now Jaguar was admitting it was in reality 272bhp DIN. Transmission was the Jaguar four-speed manual or the optional Borg-Warner 12J three-speed automatic. At launch, Jaguar stated that the XK engined E-type would remain available in Series 3 form, but in reality only three were manufactured. Visually the Series 3 E-type was recognizable by its enlarged air intake which was fitted with a chrome grille, similar in style to that fitted to the XJ6 saloon. Pressed steel wheels with chrome hubcaps were standard, and wire wheels were now an optional extra. The wheels were now 6in wide, an inch more than before, which resulted in the car having flared wheel arches.