TV IN A CAR
The kids looking so raptly at the TV screen at left are seated in the back of a moving automobile. This was a demonstration of an experimental auto television set developed by General Motors’ Delco Radio Division for Oldsmobile. It is dual-purpose, operating in a car and removable for use on line current. Having eight-inch screens, such sets were first shown by Oldsmobile this year at the Chicago and Detroit automobile shows.
PREVIEW OF THE 1961 CARS
By Stanley H. Brams
THE automobile industry began to change in the late ’50s. Power and size began to lose their appeal. Sales volume showed that for the first time in more than 50 years the auto industry was no longer a growth industry. The decision was made to swing to compact cars.
But now the industry hasn’t enough data to know whether the signs of transition are valid or whether they will disappear in a year or two. So the industry is galloping off fiercely in all directions. That accounts for such contradictions as—
Read the rest of this entry »
Snowshoes For Auto Wheels Make Winter Travel Easy
WHEN the deep snow made ordinary auto travel impossible for a farmer living in an out-of-the-way district of the upper Snake River Valley in Idaho, he ingeniously overcame the difficulty by attaching what he terms “snowshoes” to the rear wheels of his car.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tattletale computer tells driving faults
The computer has been adapted to do an important job of youth education—driver training. The new system was engineered by Raytheon for use in the Aetna Drivotrainer [PS, May '53]. It has three elements—simulated cars, a movie screen, and a console for an instructor, all fitted neatly into a classroom in a specially outfitted trailer. Monitoring individual student performance, the computer flashes word to the instructor when an error is made in driving down a road on the screen.
Why Not Sleep in the Car This Summer?
SOME car manufacturers are turning out sedans arranged for the lowering of the back of the front seat and the rearrangement of the cushions to provide a very comfortable bed. However, there are many cars in the hands of owners who would like to have them provided with a similar arrangement. Read the rest of this entry »
Six-Story Speed highways of Tomorrow
Here is an artist’s conception of the amazing multiple highway plan of Dr. John A. Harriss, former health commissioner of New York City. The plan calls for six traffic levels. Each level is for designated traffic. There is an express traffic level, two one-way levels for bus traffic and other plans to expedite traffic. This proposal of Dr. Harriss is gaining in favor as one of the most feasible of many schemes advanced to adequately handle the constantly increasing motor and pedestrian traffic.
French Car has Front Door
IN designing a car to give the minimum of resistance to the air—”to shed air as a duck sheds water”—M. Andre Dubonnet, a French automotive engineer, departed from usual practice and took advantage of the location of the engine at the rear to have a swing-up door in front, as shown by the illustrations at the left. The curve of the door followed the blunt nose shape, which is the true line of least resistance in streamlining.
‘Vacuum-Rocket’ Car Sets Style for Dirigible
Looking as though it might be as much at home in the air as on the ground, a motor truck propelled by air sucked through a wind tunnel is testing principles that may revolutionize the building of dirigibles. Air is drawn into its concave, funnel-shaped front by a small propeller and is forced out at the rear with tremendous velocity, sending the car rocketing across the earth. Read the rest of this entry »
Traffic Lights on Auto Signal Right or Left Turning
Will miniature traffic lights for each car banish hand signals, and make driving safer in crowded city streets? Police officials of Oxford, England, recently saw such a system demonstrated by Sir William Morris, motor car maker. Installed in pairs one on each side of a car, and operated from a dashboard switch, the new lights use stop and go signals familiar to every motorist to warn of turns and other maneuvers. Read the rest of this entry »
The Murderous Automobile
By HUGO GERNSBACK
IT is odd that automobile engineers, as a whole, for many years have concentrated on mechanical improvements of the automobile, but have done practically nothing toward improved design of cars, in the matter of reducing the hazards of the occupants, as well as of pedestrians.
It is true that we now have better brakes and so-called safety glass, but these are about the only points to which automobile engineers have paid serious attention. Read the rest of this entry »
The Maker of “Different” Automobiles
by Jay Earle Miller
“Let’s be different” is the working motto behind the brilliant success of E.L. Cord, maker of Auburn and Duesenberg and the Cord front-wheel drive automobiles. He has made this slogan pay to such a degree that at 35 he is not only a leading auto builder, but a prominent figure in aviation and other industries as well. The story of Cord’s rise, as told here by Mr. Miller, is not only a fascinating tale of success, but one crammed with common sense philosophy. Read the rest of this entry »
Dog Wagon DeLuxe
DOWN Missouri way professional handler Bill Wunderlich of Wentzville hauls his valuable field trial dogs in a Ford Ranchero, “customized” to house seven dogs, each one with a private, ventilated kennel carpeted with cedar shavings. John Mueller of St. Louis designed the $1,100 custom coach-work which weighs only 500 lbs. •
Comments Feed21 queries. 0.821 seconds.
