We never get tired of sharing good, solid technical info, especially when there’s an interesting historical angle. Check out this 1937 Chevrolet factory film on the basics of carburetors. 

Here in the 21st century, carburetors have carved out a special niche in automotive technology.  Although they were last employed in American production cars in the late 1980s, they can still be found here and there in the car world, still doing their important jobs.

A fun story for illustration: When Dodge re-entered the NASCAR Winston Cup Series in 1999, the folks in the engine program soon encountered what they recognized as a basic carburetor problem. But when Chrysler racing boss John Fernandez reached out across the company for engineering help, he discovered that all the carburetor specialists had long since left and gone fishing. Retirees had to be rounded up and brought in to help sort it out. In the top NASCAR series, carburetors weren’t replaced with fuel injection until 2012, and they remain popular to this day in many forms of racing. So yes, carburetors are still relevant in the car world—and they will always be an interesting subject in our book.

This 1937 Chevrolet film, entitled Free Air, provides an excellent tutorial on the basics of carburetors, and from an interesting historical angle as well. But like a number of Jam Handy-produced technical films of the period, it takes its good sweet time in getting to the point. (Audiences had different tastes and needs back then, as you can see.) If you decide to fast-forward through the first few minutes or so, we couldn’t entirely blame you. A circa-1937 Carter W-series one-barrel is an utterly simple device, but no matter how sophisticated the design, the principles of carburetor operation remain the same, just as they are shown here. Video below.