Driver Freddie Agabashian shocked the racing world by riding the Cummins Diesel Special, a car powered by a massive turbodiesel engine, to the pole at the Indy 500 in 1952.

More history:
In 1931, Clessie L Cummins convinced speedway officials to let him enter the race with an experimental diesel car. Dropped into a custom Duesenberg chassis, the four-cylinder Cummins didn’t break any records, but it ran the entire race without a pitstop and took 13th – and did it five years before Mercedes marketed the first diesel passenger car. Cummins steadily improved his diesels and had a breakthrough for the 1952 race, when he commissioned car builder Frank Kurtis to craft a low, sleek chassis around a 6,6- litre turbocharged truck motor laid on its side. That’s when Agabashian became the driver to ride the Cummins Diesel Special to the pole. Mercedes and Peugeot began offering the first turbodiesels to the masses in 1978.

Read about how the Indianapolis 500 changed the way you drive in the June 2011 issue of Popular Mechanics - on sale on 23 May. In the meantime, watch a video of the first-ever Indy 500 race held on 30 May 1911, almost 100 years ago...