MOTORING NOTES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 30 December 1938, Page 6

MOTORING NOTES

EVOLUTION IN CAR DESIGN CHANGES IN FRONTAL APPEARANCE (By Gerald Ely, London, for “The Mail”) It is evident that the frontal appearance of the modern car is undergoing rapid modification, and that before it settles down it may lose the last vestige of resemblance to a design which has persisted for many years. The change began some years ago when designers decided that a vertical front was not in accordance with the time-spirit They began first to push the radiator itself back, masking it with a grille which was supposed to act as a stone guard. But some of these grilles soon revealed themselves to be more ornamental than useful. I shall never forget the shock I experienced when, pushing my hand against the grille of a lowpriced car, a large part of it crumpled up like butter.

Soon the prentence that these grilles protected the radiator was abandoned, and thye became an integral part of the design of the car, with a welcome strengthening. New styles in bonnet lines became more and more the vogue, and the frontal appearance of the cars began to show a slope which, on some cars of foreign make, has tended to become more and more slippery. Will the radiator be taken down from its pedestal in due course and placed low down in the chassis in order to make the slope of the bonnet more pronounced? I shall be sorry to see the radiator top disappear from my line of vision, but if it brings about greater visibility. I shall have to accept it.

It seems to me that better visibility, which means in turn greater road safety, is the only excuse for a car bonnet that is given an extreme downward curve. Personally, I like to sit behind a solid-looking radiator, but I also want to see the wing tips of the car and what goes on in fronV It should not be impossible to affect a compromise between visibility and modernity. When I see a car, I like to know whether it is coming or going, and this will not always be easy if both ends of it slope.

While discussing design, it has probably not escaped the notice of motorists that the orthodox type of bonnet is also on the way to undergoing some modification. Bonnet sides have disappeared on a few models in favour of the lift-up type which exposes the whole of the engine at one operation. The

latter type of bonnet undoubtedly makes for greater accessibility, and probably helps towards the achievement of a modified streamlining. My only objection to the ordinary type of bonnet, with lifting sides, is that they are not always easy to manipulate and that they can be dropped on the headlamps. But the precaution is usually taken nowadays of covering the sharp corners with rubber.

Headlamps, by tho way, may soon have to put up a fight for “self-deter-mination,” to use the current political idiom. On some models thye have been recessed into the front wings. The Americans have been doing that for some time, and the idea seems to be gaining favour in Britain as well. If the headlamps disappear in this way, their absence will at least make the cleaning of the car easier. USE OF THE GEARS Recently an unusual contributory cause of road congestion was alleged in one of the technical journals, namely, the reluctance of many drivers to use their gear lever. This is how the writer argued it out: When one sees a long queue of cars on a highway, it stands to reason that it originated in the desire of one car to overtake another travelling at a somewhat slower speed. For some reason or other the driver does not overtake the car in front. Then, along comes another car, desirous cf passing the two in fro/tt, but for some reason he does not do so. The result lis that the three cars form the nucleus ;of a string of cars that may number anything from ten to twenty. Why did none of the three first drivers pass? According to the writer, the explanation is that when the second car tried to pass the first, he found the road a trifle narrow and was afraid of going on in case an oncoming car should place him in a perilous position. This would also apply to the third car. It is then suggested that the queue need never have been formed if the driver of the second car had used his gear-lever to greater advantage. To pass a car with a good margin of safety, it is usually necessary to go at a fairly brisk speed. In top gear it is not always possible to ensure the necessary acceleration, so that recourse must be had to a lower gear. Skilled drivers use their gears to pass in traffic, but it seems, according to the writer whom 1 have quoted, that there is great reluctance on the part of many other drivers to abandon top gear. Whether one believes in this ingenious explanation of the cause of traffic congestion or not, it is probably true to say that the average motorist does not use his gears enough, cither on the straight or on hills. There is little excuse for it in these days of synchromesh and other even easier gearboxes. It is not laziness but psychology. In-

direct gears are usually noiser than top, and many drivers associate an increase in mechanical noise with a decrease in car longevity. They are afraid that too much use of the lower gears may harm the car. Let them be reassured It will do a car more harm to make too little use of the lower gears than too much, as they think. GERMANY AND TOURISTS

Since the incorporation of Austria and the Sudetenland into Germany, Herr Hitler’s coadjutors have been making tentative plans for extending the Reich system of motorways into the acquired territories. The underlying idea may be strategical, but it is not to be doubted that the Nazi regime hope to introduce more “new money” into Greater Germany by an increased tourist traffic. One of the most important “hoteliers” in Germany, on a recent visit to Britain, told me that Herr Hitler is particularly anxious tc develop the tourist trade, and that he intends to spend money unstintedly towards that end. Hotels in Austria and Germany have suffered badly through the absence of British tourists— a large numbtr of whom always came in their cars—and hotel-keepers hope, as a result of the Munich agreement to have a better time. Attempts are being made by those interested to abolish visals between Britain and Germany. I think that an even more formidable obstacle to touring in Germany are the currency regulations which are a great nuisance to visitors. But that the people of Germany are prepared to give a warm welcome to British motor tourists is not to be gainsaid. During my recent visit to the German motorways this fact was sufficientyl impressed upon me.