DESIGNING A BODY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 124, 11 May 1935, Page 13

DESIGNING A BODY

Much Detailed Work

Few motorists know of the vast amount of detail work that lies behind tho beautifully-moulded bodies gracing the latest new cars. Car bodies were formerly designed practically on a blackboard, but the importance of body lines has brought about a totally new method of designing in those oversea centres where car body fashions are evolved.

The up-to-date process consists of. making a full-sized plaster model,

based frequently on data gained-from wind-tunnel tests with small plaster models. The full-sized model is carved or shaped into exactly the form designed, and is mounted on a frame with wheels and plaster dummy bonnet and mudguards, thus making it possible to visualise the whole car. When the modelling of the plaster of Paris body is complete, it is smoothed, painted, and polished, so that the lustre will bring out the highlights. Thus can the effects of lights and shadows be studied from every angle. When satisfied with the plaster body, the designers make a perfect copy of the body, bonnet and mudguards tn soft wood, usually mahogany. This wooden form is subsequently used in sections in the foundry, where casts are made. From each section a pair of d:-i is cast, so that when they are brom t together, in huge, hydraulic presses, a flat sheet of steel is moulded into a perfect reproduction of the plaster model. These sections are subsequently welded together by an electric process, and thus assembled into a complete unit of great strength.

It is contended by designers that the body-lines of a car have largely disappeared since the introduction of streamlining, it being claimed that the observer of a modern ear does not really see lines, but only the highlights which are reflected from the curved surfaces of the moulded body. It is the highlights which accentuate and giv» life and character to the up-to-date ear body, and it is stated that the handling of the highlights is one of the most critical and important features of the creative work associated with the designs of new bodies.