The Manawatu Daily Times Streamline and Style

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 31, 6 February 1935, Page 6

The Manawatu Daily Times Streamline and Style

Shiny paint and sparkling chromium marked New York’s 1935 automobile show. The cars were sleek, rhythmic, often a real delight to the eye. But one expectation apparently was fulfilled : the second progressive step in streamlining.

Streamlining consists not only of smooth flowing lines but in the correct line of masses. An object to cleave the air most easily should be broadest at the head, narrowest at the rear.

The late Glenn H. Curtiss, one leading authority points out, took a typical automobile body, mounted it backward and was able to go ten miles an hour faster. This was an old car without the smooth lines of to-day. But mass was in the right place.

Last year produced two lines of cars with broad front and some narrowing of the rear. Bolder progress along this line was expected this year; also, one or two experiments witli motors in the rear to permit better streamlining. But last year’s air flow cars do not appear to have swept the market in the wholesale manner anticipated, and manufacturers, confronted by public conservatism, have swung back to narrowest front lines. ,

Fundamentally 1935’s cars are less, streamlined than last year’s. To be sure, windshields slope more sharply, backs slope more gradually, liven so, to-day’s bodies would travel backward better than forward.

Meanwhile motor powers have increased. Low-priced cars are motored with SO-to-90 horse-power plants. These may help cars to simulate streamline performance through brute power. Another consideration which needs study is weight of cars. To carry an average load of 400 or 500 pounds the motorist still still has to drive 3500 pounds of metal.

Perhaps the need is for aviation designers to go into the automobile business. Motor-car manufacturers seem to find tradition hard to break. But this year William Stout,, former Ford aeroplane designer, is expected to Introduce a customary made ear built on aeroplane practice. It will incorporate lighter metals. It will be streamlined for mass, and thus styled from true streamlining. It will have its motor at the rear. It will even use aeroplane-type wheel spring mountings.

Eventually such direct approach as this must break the shackles of tradition, and the automobile must carry its engiengineering into streamline and lightweight designs’ essential to efficient travel.