The history of the Fish-carburetter

The Fish carb was originaly invented by John Robert Fish, back in the early 1930s`s in America, Massachusets. John R. Fish was more an brilliant inventor with allround-talents than an automobile-engineer. He had a great understanding of pressure-differentials and aerodynamics. And he was one of the fathers of the iron lung.

As he first entered the field of carburattion, he wanted to eradicate the total dependance of float-levels these days. He first noticed this problem when he circled a sharp corner with his Ford Modell T and the engine died off. The problem is the centrifugal force which draws, under some circumstances, the fuel out of the jet(s), or presses it in. J.R. Fish disliked this, as he saw this as source for fuel-waste, and not at least many problems on race-cars.

His experiments dind`t reveal any results he could live with, so J.R. Fish decided to build his own carburetter.

It should work under any (atmospheric) circumstances, independent from float-levels and of course stop any fuel-waste. It should operate without venturis, jets etc. to have the best possible airflow and therefore less waste. His solution was, technicaly, verry simple but nevertheless verry modern and advanced.

Conventional carburetters are based on the venturi-principle. Air gets accelerated and tears the fuel out of an jet. At low airspeeds, fuel isn`t atomized good, the mixture must be set rich and artificially weakend by correction-jets. In J.R. Fish`s eyes a total waste of fuel.

Following this, his carb wasn`t based on the venturi-principle but on the one of pressure-differentials. This meant, the carb tuned and rejetted itself automatically, independent from wheather or atmospheric influencies. And he dind`t have any conventionall fuel-metering instances like needle, jets or something like that.


The Fish-carburetter was born.

Details are to be found unter "Function".

Roberts with Trophy

Daytona Beach

The struggle

J.R. Fish started the production of his carburetter, and it soon gained popularity. Because it got more and more popular and succesfull, it was seen as too big competition from the industrie which supplied "works"-carbs. J.R. Fish`s company suffered under enduring boycotts. Even the carburetters J.R. Fish sent to his customers returned to the company and it was claimed J.R. Fish`s company doesn`t produce any carbs.

J.R. Fish, close to a financial collapse, went to Daytona Beach, Florida and re-found his company. He continued selling his carbs to single persons and Fishers (no joke!). At the same time an popular stock-car driver got involved in the Fish-story. Fireball Roberts. He drove, for the Fish-company, a single-barrel Fish-carburetter instead of the original four-barrel carburetter. And, although his car was pretty old, he literally left everyone behind.

Not at least his outstanding performance made the Daytona Beach Racetrack popular these days.

But again, works-teams didn`t like to see the cars of J.R. Fish`s comapny gain one trophy after the other. Strangely enough the Fish-cars had myterious breakdowns. J.R. Fish ordered his men to stand guard at night. The big companys then tried to push Fish out of business via the reglementations.

But nothing was found. After some more won races against drivers who were paid to win, Carl Kiehaefer (one of those who paid thousands of dollars) forced the NASCAR Tech Team to "find something illegal". And of course they found something. "Illegaly" shortend pushrods. A common modification to compensate skimmed cylinderheads, nothing to add more HP.

J.R. Fish, seriously weakend by his struggel against the competitors, withdrawed from racing.

Flathead w/ 3 Fish

Fish-corp, Florida

Production

The return

Eric Liebman from "Fish Carburetors Canada" convinced J.R. Fish to produce a short version of the M1 carburetter for the growing market of VW Beetles. This helped Fish`s company back to financial strengh. J.R. Fish was so thankfull, that he grantet Liebman the exclusive-rights for Canada, the north-states and the rest of the world.

Bob Henderson, originaly from Great Britain, met Liebman in 1956 an arranged an contract which allowed him to sell Fish carbs in party of Canada. 1959 he returned to Great Britain, together with some carburetters. The interest was great, and an unexpected marked opened. As the Americans could not cope with the production, Liebman gave his rights for "the rest of the world" to Henderson; who, as countermove, had to promise to provide the Americans with carburetters too.

Henderson was allowed to file an patent on an improved version of the Fish carburetter which he sold as "Minnow Fish Carburetter" then.

Henderson sold his rights to Leonard Reece, sometimes. Reece improved the carburetter again and sold it as "Reece-Fish". Since Henderson concentrated mostly on VW, Reece developt a much bigger market and the Reece-Fish carb became the most popular after-market carb in england in the 60`s and 70`s. Mainly because of it`s improved variability. It was cheaper, but close as good as an expensive Weber-carb.

The Reece version of the Fish-Carb was the most succesfull of all the three variants and brought the Fish-story to an happy end.