This engine was designed by Victor Lougheed, elder brother to Allan and Malcolm Lougheed, founders of the Lockheed Aircraft Company, and manufactured in 1911 by the Taft-Peirce Manufacturing Company of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It was made almost entirely of Krupp chrome nickel steel at the contemporary high cost of $15,000, with the crankcase and cylinders turned from solid billets weighing approximately 908 kg (2,000 lb.)

Fuel and lubrication were forced into the cylinders through bypasses in the sides of the cylinders and pistons. Multiple poppet valves, with six in the head of each power-producing cylinder, provided for excellent and rapid scavenging of combustion gases. The eight air pumps, projecting from the lower part of the crankcase, maintained in the crankcase at all times a compression of air which was expelled through the cylinders on the exhaust stroke, and assisted in keeping the cylinders cool.