MOTOR CAR OF THE FUTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 276, 22 November 1927, Page 16

MOTOR CAR OF THE FUTURE.

SURPRISES AT PARIS SHOW.

EXPERTS' FORECAST OF NEW FEATURES. The recent Paris Motor Car Salon, undoubtedly forecast the car of the near future. No one carriage displayed actually is the future car, but -the advanced features of six exhibited will be developed, says the motor correspondent of the "Daily News."

Four of the greatest French and British automobile engineers predict the general adoption in five years' time of:

Front-wheel drives. No axles as are known now. Each wheel independently 6prung.

Harmonised, but independent steering of the front wheels.

Automatic gear # change through a free wheel clutch.

Bodies built so low and capacious that comfort and complete safety at speeds of 70 and 75 miles an hour will be general.

Two have extraordinarily clever suspension systems. But the sensation of the show in advanced car engineering is the French Farman, also with independent springing of each wheel and independent balanced steering.

It has dual or compound springing of a marvellously supple nature, one set acting primarily for comfortable riding for light passenger. Joads, and the other coming into action when the full load of seven persons is carried.

The system is entirely different from that of the Cottin. The Cottin has no axles; the Farman has both front and rear axles. The whole of the front axle moves with the motion of the front wheels up and down. The Cottin differential box is rigidly bolted to the rear cross member of the chassis and the final drive is through two shafts with universal joints at the differential and the wheels.

In the Farman the whole of the back axle, the differential and the transmission moves up or down with the independent motion of each wheel with its independent suspension, which both at the front and in the rear, has transverse as well as longitudinal leaf springs. The chassis keeps a level keel.

In action on the road the system is so astonishing that between two cars, one driven with one front wheel not fitted with a tyre and the other with both wheels fitted normally with tyres, you could not tell the difference in driving. One other make has front-wheel drive, and exactly the same idea of independent springing and steering, but in this case the suspension is oil hydraulic.

The Harris, with its tubular chassis side members containing ordinary spiral compression springs, allowing each wheel independence of action, is the simplest of all, and is stated to be the design of an Englishman, Mr. Garson, of Newcastle-on-Tvne. This has been experimented with by a British firm on their big car, and gave wonderful riding comfort.

The weak spot in all the systems, to my mind, is the multiplicity of the universal joints and their wear.

French makers are keenly interested in the British Sandeberg free-wheel clutch device, which has just successfully come through an R.A.C. 1000 miles test. Some big British makers are also experimenting, and in 1929 there is a strong possibility of thousands of British cars being produced with proved automatic gear-changing systems as standard.