Wow, this is just the beginning of Toyota’s reemergence after WWII. According to the blurb they only made about 2700 cars a year. Currently they are the second largest car company in the world and produce close to ten million cars a year. That car is actually kinda snazzy, it reminds me of a mashup of a BMW (the grille) and Beetle (the body).
Jap Cars Shown
These first products of Japan’s postwar Automobile industry, recently displayed in Tokyo, don’t mean that Nippon’s citizens will abandon their walking habits. The entire output of the Toyota Motor Co., at Nagoya, is only some 30 cars and 200 trucks a month. These will be sold to hospitals, to government agencies, and to business firms. The passenger car, seating four, has a 27-hp., four-cylinder engine, a speed of 54 m.p.h., and will average 40 miles to the gallon. The one-half-ton trucks have the same power plant, but a different gear ratio and will do about 30 miles on a gallon. The cars will sell for 250,000 yen ($5,000), and the trucks for the equivalent of $3,200.
Monoxide Thumbs a Ride
Drowsy while driving? Make sure carbon monoxide isn’t poisoning you at the wheel. A checkup may save a life.
CARBON monoxide is a hitchhiker. We all know that this odorless gas, generated by an automobile at the rate of about a cubic foot a minute, will quickly turn a closed garage into a death chamber, but we are apt to overlook the fact that it rides along each time we drive out on the highway. Its handiwork shows up in traffic accident news more frequently than most persons “realize. The police* reports may say that the driver “apparently fell asleep,” or perhaps a big question mark appears in the space where the cause of the accident should be recorded, since no one remains alive to tell about it.
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The AUTOMOBILE of the Future
Bill Stout, Detroit inventive pioneer who built the first cantilever wing plane, the first tri-motor, and who has worked for Henry Ford in an advisory capacity, here tells what the car of tomorrow will be like.
by WM. B. STOUT As told to Paul Weber
WHAT do I think about the automobile of the future?
Well, it will be about one-third the weight of the present car and will, of course, be streamlined. The new cars will all weigh less than 2,000 lbs. and will probably have motors of around 100 horsepower. They will be light weight cars, because the lighter the car the easier it rides.
This may sound like heresy in view of the popular supposition that heavier cars ride more easily. But my statement is true. The reason is not that the car is heavier, but that in heavy cars of today the distribution of sprung and unsprung weight accidentally happens to be better. With the new engineering which has been gaining vogue, with streamlining, and with the efforts of such engineers as Starling Burgess and Buckminster Fuller of Dymaxion fame among others, we will provide proper ratios between sprung and unsprung weight in all cars, and then the lighter cars will ride easier.
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Outboard Motor Car Does 40 Miles an Hour
by DICK COLE
A junked outboard motor makes an excellent power plant for a cycle car when converted as described here by Mr. Cole. The little car will develop speeds up to 40 miles an hour, and has power to burn.
TO BE the possessor of a self-propelled vehicle is the ambition of every normal boy. Every father has heard the plea of his son when out in the country in the family car: “Gee, Dad! Lem’me drive, will you? Please! I know how! Honest I do! Lem’me show you. Please, Dad, come on!”
My boy had just reached that stage— only more so. He begged me to build him some kind of vehicle that would “run by itself.” Since I like to putter around and make things—particularly something different from the other fellow—I gave ear to his pleadings, and began to think the matter over.
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