How the New Cars Are Designed

An artist sketches an exotic, streamline-design on a giant blackboard. Sculptors model it full size in clay. Artisans carve it out of solid chunks of wood. Metalworkers fashion it in sheets of steel. Finally, a car of new and daring design is created, only to be driven virtually to destruction in brutal tests that will decide whether it shall be scrapped, or become the newest product of a mass-production line. In the accompanying photographs, taken in the “art department” of the Chrysler Corporation, in Detroit, Mich., you see a few tentative models of the company’s future cars. There, as in similar departments of other manufacturers, the endless process of improving the appearance and performance of cars goes on behind locked doors, to make your car of two or five years hence a reality.

Trailer Chapel Has Speaker System

Built into a trailer, a chapel on wheels brings church services to isolated mountain sections of Virginia and West Virginia. Its rear wall unfolds to form a platform before the altar, and a canopy containing two loudspeakers for a public-address system, which carries the preacher’s voice to the congregation. A gasoline-driven generator mounted in the back of the sedan that draws the trailer supplies electric power for the public-address system and for cooking and lighting. Supplemented by a storage battery, the generator unit automatically starts when a light or appliance is turned on, and stops when all are switched off.

“Stiltmobile” Aids Mailmen
DESIGNED for use by rural mail carriers who must travel over roads which are frequently covered with heavy mud and snow, a new “Stiltmobile” is equipped with greatly enlarged wheels, elevated fenders and a specially designed body.

The odd looking machine is said to travel 20 to 30 miles on a gallon of gasoline. For ordinary transportation purposes, the large wheels and elevated fenders can be removed and replaced with conventional types.

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Coming Cars that Can “Take It”

Is the crashproof car a dream? Read this prophetical article.

by Frederick Russell

SAFE because it’s unbreakable—is that the picture of the automobile as it will be in the near future?

Many engineers say “yes,” pointing to the greatly fortified 1938 car as evidence The majority of them agree that if cars can be built with sufficient strength to withstand today’s punishment it should be but a short step to a car that can take a bad spill and not be any the worse for it.
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Auto Has Windshield Washer
CONTROLLED by a small button concealed on the flange of the instrument panel, a new device for spraying two fine streams of water on the windshield to clear away road splash, mud, rain spots or insects is a featured accessory of an automobile produced by a well-known manufacturer. The entire mechanism is vacuum operated, and is said to be faultless in operation.

The complete windshield cleaning unit consists of an automatic pump and a water container mounted on the dash under the hood. Rubber tubes connect the water container to small pipes, installed in the wiper castings at the base of the windshield, from which the water is ejected when desired.

AUTO-SHOCKO

Have some REAL FUN with your car. With AUTO-SHOCKO you can give anyone who touches the outside surface of your car a HARMLESS, but VERY EFFECTIVE shock. When the switch inside your car is on, the entire outer surface of the car becomes charged. You can also charge your buddies car by touching your bumper to his. Then he won’t be able to get into his car until you turn off your switch. Can also be left on while car is parked to keep vandals from scratching or damaging your car. Will not run down your battery. AUTO-SHOCKO is probably the best FUN MAKER you will ever own. Easily installed in a few minutes. Sent complete with AUTO-SHOCKO unit, wire, switch, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

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Jungle to Factory—Trail of Auto Tire

Sidewalk from Chicago to New York Could Be Built from Rubber

Annually Consumed in Making Treads and Tubes

ABOUT seven-tenths of the value of rubber products made in the United States is represented in automobile tires and inner tubes, while 75 per cent of the world’s entire output of the material is consumed in their manufacture.

Until recent years the “rubber trail” took its traders into the wildest lands of the tropics, where they confronted untold hardships in order to provide the motorist with velvet shoes for the wheels of his car. Now, the rapid production of rubber on cultivated plantations makes the collecting of the various grades a far easier task.
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Portable Pumps Let You Fill ‘Er Up While You Shop

YOU’LL soon be able to fill up the gas tank at your favorite shopping center—while you’re buying the groceries.

A portable gasoline service station, which can also be used at airports, resorts, or parking lots, is now being tested in several states by American Petrofina Co.

Each unit consists of a modified golf cart which hauls two pumps containing 100 gallons of premium and 200 gallons of regular gas. It also holds an air compressor tank, motor oil, battery and radiator water, and windshield cleaning materials.

“It has all the features of a regular service station except complete lubrication and car washing” says its inventor, Joe S. Cline, of Oklahoma City, Okla.

Dual Controls On Motorcycle
Dual controls on a new motorcycle permit either rider to drive the machine. When used as a trainer the motorcycle permits a novice to learn to drive in 30 minutes, according to the manufacturer. The motorcycle has a second seat over the rear wheel with a complete set of controls for the rider.

Model Dynasphere Seats 5 Persons

FOLLOWING the successful trials of his Dynasphere—a huge wheel with a seat inside—Dr. Purves, English inventor, has now designed a Dynasphere de luxe, the model of which is shown in the photo below.

The enlarged version of the model seats five persons comfortably in a glassed-in cabin, which remains in an upright position while the outside wheel rolls down the road.

The motive power of the vehicle is supplied by a small engine in front of the driver, which runs on a geared track on the inside circumference of the wheel.

AUTO DISPLACES BRONCHO IN RIDING TEST

In the one-time wild and woolly West, riding the bucking automobile may give way to the honored test of skill in horsemanship— riding the bucking broncho. For it has been found that a seat on the radiator of a small auto with the wheels off center gives all the thrills of a broncho-busting contest, with an element of novelty. In a recent performance of this sort in California, a saddle was placed on the hood, and a prize of $25 offered for riding two blocks. At 10 miles an hour, the rider had difficulty; at 15 miles, he went off. With the hub of each of the wheels of the car removed and reset 2 inches off center, it gives a realistic imitation of the bucking broncho, though, having no reins, the rider is, perhaps, even more helpless than on the “orneriest” animal. Read the rest of this entry »

Motor Cycle Is Driven by Steam

POWERED by steam from a compact boiler, this novel motor cycle is virtually silent in operation. The inventor, a Miami, Fla., filling-station man, claims that the odd cycle averages fifty miles on a gallon of fuel.