CONSISTENTLY IMPROVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 83, 8 April 1930, Page 16

CONSISTENTLY IMPROVED.

No mechanism is so consistently being improved as the automobile. It is not simply because there are fashions in gears and pistons as there are in dress, but because the circumstances change in which an automobile is driven and because there is demand for greater speed, safety, ease of operation and comfort. More than any other invention, the automobile reflects the state of mechanical engineering and its relation to society. First we see the influence of good roads. Once they are built, the desire for speed becomes insatiable. Even the least expensive of the,new cars can touch close on GO miles an hour. To attain speed the automobile maker has borrowed freely from the airplane (swiftest of all vehicles) and the influence of aviation is seen in the efforts

of body-builders to more and more streamline their productions, and also in spark-plugs, shock absorbers, and the increasing iise of aluminium to lighten the mass of moving engine parts. But to racing we owe most of the present day improvements in cars which have added so greatly to speed, safety and comfort. The automobile being a vehicle that is driven by millions of men and women who are no respecters of machinery, the engineer has found it necessary to devise cars that will all but take care of themselves. So we find in the modern car of to-day thermostatically controlled radiator shutters, more ways to lubricate twenty to forty chassis points at once by the turn of a handle or the pressing of a pedal, and more automatic means to lubricate pistons than by splashing of oil in a crankcase. In mechanism the automobile owner is willing to leave all to the engineer, but not so in the body design and colour. In these respects mass production has not yet throttled self-expression and never before . has such,a variety of beautiful bodies and colour schemes been offered. When paint was flushed on with a hose (the brush was to slow), there was no room for rainbow hues, but with modern quickdrying nitrocellulose lacquers, sprayed on by air pressure, even the maker of a million cars a year can afford to consider individual tastes. Artists are now engaged in' several plants to harmonise colour and body design. Perhaps this consideration for the individual—the entry of artists into the automobile plant—is of even more significance than the purely mechanical advances; for it shows that science can aid the manufacturer to satisfy the individual motorist.