Here is something I found on the net about when the turbocharger was invented:
"The exhaust gas turbocharger was invented 100 years ago: On 16 November 1905 Swiss engineer Dr. Alfred Büchi received patent No. 204630 from the Imperial Patent Office of the German Reich for a "combustion machine consisting of a compressor (turbine compressor), a piston engine, and a turbine in sequential arrangement".
Born on 11 July 1879, Büchi, who died on 27 October 1959, worked as an engineer in the Swiss town of Winterthur. His idea was not just to pre-compress the air flowing into the engine, but also to use the kinetic energy coming out in the exhaust gas under high pressure, which otherwise was simply wasted. So he used the exhaust gas flowing out after the combustion process to drive a turbine serving, in turn, to drive a compressor pre-compressing the intake air and boosting the air charge in the engine. This marked the birth of the turbocharger.
Büchi had to wait a long time until his invention was able to enter practical use. The first application of turbocharger technology was in large marine engines, with the German Ministry of Transport commissioning the construction of the "Danzig" and "Preussen" passenger liners in 1923. Each of these two passenger ships had twin ten-cylinder diesel engines with output boosted by turbocharger technology from 1750 to 2500 horsepower.
The first attempts to use this technology in the automobile began in the late '50s, with the so-called "turbo gap" – the delayed response of the engine to the throttle – presenting development engineers with a challenge still insurmountable at the time."
