Engines that produce their energy by heat and combustion have always presented engineers and inventors with the problem of maintaining safe operating temperatures. In 1823, Samuel Brown, an English inventor, came up with a way of cooling an engine by using water. In his design, the water, contained within a casing or cylinder lining, circulated around the cylinders. The water was constantly kept moving through the action of a pump and was recooled by contact with outside air. Two years later, Brown founded a company to build his water-cooled engine. In 1859, Jean-Joseph-Étienne Lenoir, a Belgian-French inventor, created the first usable internal combustion engine; his device employed the same water-cooling system.

It was not until 1897 that the radiator was first invented. A German engineer, Wilhelm Maybach, worked for a long time to perfect a successful radiator. Finally, he came up with a honeycomb design...