POWER SAVED.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20789, 24 February 1933, Page 6

POWER SAVED.

VALUE OF STREAMLINING. While most motorists are aware that somo power is consumed by tho passago of an automobile through the air, few realise the great consumption of power that takes place when a car travels at even a fast touring speed. Experts claim that when the speed is doubled the resistance becomes four times as great. Tests havo shown that the saving in fuel between a streamlined car and one with an orthodox type of body is in the region of 40 per cent., while the saving of power ranges from 14 to 31 per cent, at 25 miles an hour, from 25 to 45 per cent, tit 37i miles an hour, and from 34 to 03 per cent, at 50 miles an hour. These figures indicate the colossal losses that the world's 30,000,000 car owners arc facod with annually, just because the motor-car' body builders, in the early days of tho motor, followed the lines of the coach builder, instead of launching out with a scientifically-designed body. Ideal stream-lined forms havo their largest diameter about one-third their length from tho forward end, and taper gradually in both forward and rearward directions. Some of the latest model cars now appearing in New Zealand show marked improvement in body design, but in Europe the streamlining trend is moro pronounced. It is being demonstrated by Continental body designers that efficient streamlining can bo applied without any great departure from conventional practice, and not too radical a change for public acceptance.