Topic summary
Hand crank
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Crank (mechanism).
20th century
Cranks were formerly common on some machines in the early 20th century; for example almost all phonographs before the 1930s were powered by clockwork motors wound with cranks. Reciprocating piston engines use cranks to convert the linear piston motion into rotational motion. Internal combustion engines of early 20th century automobiles were usually started with hand cranks (known as starting handles in the UK), before electric starters came into general use. The last car model which incorporated a crank was the Citroën 2CV 1948-1990