PROGRESS IN DESIGNING.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18512, 8 March 1930, Page 13 (Supplement)

PROGRESS IN DESIGNING.

Will the body designer become eventually the designer of the car as a , whole? This may have been asked before, but current happenings bring it more forcibly to attention. Progress in design for many years has followed the line of improving the conception of a chassis on which a body is mount- 1 ed. Gradually, however, this marriage of two distinct and complementary units has been clothed more and more completely with fenders, aprons and shields, all tending to blend the separate identities into an indivisible unit. Thus the body designer has taken over the function which the automobile builder created, but never cared to carry to fulfilment. So to-day the body builder very largely controls the product as far as carriage work is concerned, but has nothing to say about the chassis. This, he finds somewhat cramping to his style. He might go further and faster, he feels, were he given more leeway in specifying controlling dimensions and locating certain units, instead of merely shrouding the mechanical assembly which engineers have contrived. The point is that many things about chassis designs have become traditional and remain unchanged because of inertia rather than engineering necessity. There is no particular reason why a good many alterations might not be made, provided good reasons were to develop. Reasons for such alterations as these are less likely to arise out of engineering necessity, however, as from the struggle of the body builder to produce a better looking, more comfortable and generally more satisfactory car. So the question is how far the body designer will be permitted to go in realising those of his ideas which involve engineering changes, and how far he would go if left entirely to himself.

OIL LEAKAGE FROM ENGINE. Did you ever notice on the road that there are two dark streaks on it—one on each side of the centre? They are caused by oil leaking out of engines as they pass. The drivers of the majority of the road-marking cars complain about the low mileage they get from a quart of oil. The average driver seems to think that the outside of his engine is supposed to be covered with oil, and fully CO per cent, of the engines are smeared with it. However, that oil is not supposed to be there, and is an indication of a leak which is cutting down oil mileage. In some instances the oil on an engine is thrown out of the breather tube. If this is the case, it is an indication that the oil level in the crankcase is too high or that the dippers, if the engine employs them, on the lower end of the connecting rods, are set at such an angle as to throw too much oil. The best way to locate a leak, and they should be located without delay, is to clean the engine thoroughly, and watch for the oil to appear while the engine is run.

PILLION RIDING. Earle Howe was the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the MotorCycling Club, which was held recently in London. Proposing the toast of the club, he said that the M.C.C. trials were, among amateurs, the classic events of the motoring world. He was once, he continued, not only the proud possessor of one motor-cycle, but of several; he wished that people who expressed opinions about motor-cycling would do so with some sense of proportion. The flapper-bracket was one of the best ways of getting out into the country and of enjoying the open air. “Do let us live and let live,” he continued. “A little more spirit of give and take all round is required.”

Out of 637 food samples taken at Kensington 25 were found to be adulterated.