These days, if you want to learn something, you probably head to the Internet. There are any number of eager tutors on YouTube gesturing at you with whiteboards and ideas, or you can take to Wikipedia to learn from technical articles written in varying quality. Jump back to the 20th century, though, and there was an altogether more beautiful educational resource—the instructional film.
As it turns out, the Shell Oil Company was a prolific producer of these films. The company shot and assembled a great library of content. The films delve into a wide range of subjects in the automotive realm and on many engineering topics beyond. The reason this came to my attention? Because the Shell Historical Film Archive has begun sharing these beautiful films on YouTube.
If you’ve got some blind spots in your automotive knowledge—especially the basics—these films might be right up you’re alley. Despite their age—some almost 100 years old—the concepts and explanations within remain perfectly valid today. What’s more, these films far exceed the quality of many modern educational materials, besides.
The Old Ways Were Better
There’s something very special about these films: their production quality. You’re presented with beautiful shots, filmed by experts with quality equipment. For example, take Engine Lubrication Explained from 1968, as embedded above. A modern YouTube video might have some basic diagrams and some stock photos of someone pouring oil into an engine [Ed Note: To Be fair, many modern videos have amazing CAD imagery, and I’d argue we’re at the peak of video production, but I do love the old-timey, physical shots here. -DT]. In contrast, Shell built an entire four-cylinder engine model with a transparent head, block, and sump. The film shows us, in full motion video, exactly how oil flows through every part of the engine, from the oil pan to the crankshaft to the cams. We’re then treated to a silken-voiced British gentleman explaining what’s happening. You’ll float away on a cloud of knowledge as he makes sweet utterances like “big end bearings” and “gudgeon pins.”
It gets better from there, too. The film goes so far as to introduce animations on how engine oil works on a molecular level, covering topics like sludging, temperature-sensitive viscosity, and oxidation. It’s all super intuitive when you can literally see what’s going on. The only flaw is that at times, the conversion to digital video has slurred some of the finer animations to the point where they’re somewhat less intelligible.
This is how engineering content is supposed to be delivered. Clear descriptions from authoritative voices with the finest in practical demonstrations. If you’ve ever watched some of the 1950s educational films from the US Army, you’ll be familiar with this type of instruction.
Shell’s videos cover a wide gamut of topics. Whether you want to learn about car suspension in 1938, the workings of the diesel engine, or hydraulic power transmission, the Shell Film Unit has covered it all. The organization produced films on all kinds of technological topics over the years related to Shell’s operations and many of more general interest.
The operation was founded in 1934 by legendary documentary filmmaker John Grierson. Films were often screened in cinemas and in non-theatrical settings like universities and schools, which relied on these films as a valuable technical resource. Shell’s films would go on to be distributed in many languages around the world. The work even led to the formation of an offshoot Shell Film Unit Australia in 1948. The antipodean offshoot produced a great range of local content on 16mm film, covering the local oil industry, the natural sciences, and Australian motorsport.
You might think this is just a light, simple look at diesel engines, but it’s surprisingly comprehensive. It starts off with the context of diesel engines and then gets into the nitty gritty. You get to see combustion within a cylinder in slow motion! Heck, it even covers opposed-piston engines and scavenging! Scavenging, people!
As covered by the British Film Institute, the rise of new technology would see a decline in the organization’s work. Non-theatrical film distribution tailed off as video became the format of choice in this regard. Renamed to the Shell Film and Video Unit, the organization’s work continued, though its output of high-quality engineering documentary content dropped off in subsequent years. The golden era of these documentary films stretched from roughly 1934 to 1984, with the organization eventually passing its entire archive over to the National Film and Television Archive at the British Film Institute.
We’ve got great stuff on YouTube and Netflix these days, but I wish we had more videos like this built on physical models and commissioned at this scale by major corporations. Which companies are out there animating the actions of chemicals and lubricants at the molecular level? There are still educational videos being made — great ones showing all sorts of intricacies via animations — but I don’t see too many at this kind of level showing the actual hardware.
I suspect a lot of it comes down to money. There simply isn’t a business case to make for producing quality content on this level/scale anymore. Doing so is expensive—it requires engineers to prepare the content, models, and equipment, and a talented crew to film, animate, and narrate everything. None of that comes cheap, and there aren’t a lot of paying customers for this kind of content.
For whatever reason, Shell spent much of the last century producing quality content that was pretty much just for the public good (and of course, it was an advertisement for Shell products by familiarized folks with engines that use Shell oil). That’s something I don’t see a lot of oil companies doing today. If I were Supreme Ruler of the Commerce, I’d make this kind of thing mandatory. It could only be a good thing.
Image credits: Shell via YouTube screenshot
I remember, in the 1970s, I guess?, Shell put little booklets in magazines about the working of cars and car safety things. They were yellow, and I still have one. But it is a series of dozens.
Two words; Turbo Encabulator
This article spurred me to go down yet another internet rabbit hole.
In the diesel video, there was a tractor made by David Brown Ltd., a British tractor and engineering company. Which prompted a Wikipedia session.
At some point they bought Aston Martin and Lagonda for less than £100,000 all together.
Is it possible all the DBs 4 through 7 were named after the founder?
Yes, the DB in Aston Martin model names is David Brown’s initials.
I kind of admire that level of conceit. I just don’t have the wealth to pull it off. Lol, really, I don’t admire it, but it’s still impressive on some level.
And also, thanks for letting me know I wasn’t completely insane guessing at that.
Some of the old ways were better. I wouldn’t even know who to call to find out where I could get Babbitt bearings poured.
-actually, it occurs to me that contacting an active historical train society would be where I’d start.
I chalk it up to most people now (not us!) not really caring how their possessions work, just that they do.
Back in the early ’60s, Ford produced a freakin’ 15 minute movie that introduced the new Mustang concept. It’s amazing to watch as it’s not just beauty shots of the car speeding down the road, but frequent deep dives into its engineering that assume viewers are paying careful attention and have a basic familiarity with how their stuff works already.
Contrast that with today where few people could tell you how their phones work (again, not here) or even generally how computing devices do what they do. Hence, Apple and Samsung ads focus on all the pictures we’ll be able to take, or how many hours of entertainment we can watch on tiny screens before needing to recharge.
It’s hard to know if this is big picture good or bad, esp. as we transition to EVs that are more like our phones than our cars, but to me, it feels bad. Say what you will about corporate behavior, but there was something good for all us about companies operating with a mindset that assumed a decent level of capability from its customers.
Mondays must be Lewin Day at the Autopian. .
Well, we all know they’re not Mercury anymore!
To be fair, Lewin can be mercurial.
Today I learned that Royal Dutch Shell changed their name to Shell plc. It sounds so much less majestic. There’s not a lot of companies doing anything for the public good anymore.