Wind-Cheating Cars

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18378, 21 April 1934, Page 9

Wind-Cheating Cars

WTILL the rear-engined motor-car bo the car of the future? asks tho motoring correspondent of the London Daily Express. Certain American manufacturers are introducing cars with engines in the tail, hoping that this innovation will help to win back some of their lost export trade. Germany has produced a car of this type. For the first time a British car with the engine at the back was shown at the autumn motor show at Olympia. In the rear-engined car designed by Sir Dennis Burney, the body was fashioned like a tear drop. Sir Dennis Burney took his ideas to America, and his car attracted a certain amount, of attention. His ideas are now incorporated in a British production model —one of the 1934 Crosslcys. The writer did not anticipate any really big advance in the rear-engined car for a few years.

From the engineering point of view there is no reason why the engine should not function just as well at the back of the car as in front. From the point of view of convenience thcie is every reason why it should be tucked away behind. First, one has the increased body space. ‘With- the engine at the back the body; builder can bring into play the modern science of streamlining. When tlio first Burney • streamlined car with the engine at the back was undergoing - experiments • it \ was found, under test that the completed car was actually faster on the track than the bare chassis. The windcheating body gave the car an extra maximum speed of something like 8 m.p.h. The full benefit of streamlining only comes into plaj' at speed.