MotorTrend October 1952

THE PAST FEW weeks have seen a steady assault on land speed records seldom paralleled during any comparable period in recent history. And not only were records attempted, but they were broken as well. Running the gamut of these attempts have been practically every type of internal combustion-operated machine on wheels, from stock sports cars, through intricately conceived, weirdly contrived hot rods, to the special-bodied Goldie-Gardner MG. Taking things in their chronological order, we first have the record recently set up by a strictly stock Jaguar XK-120 coupe, which ran continuously for seven days and seven nights at Montlhery, France. During this time it stopped only for gas, oil, and repairs, covering a distance comparable to five trips across the United States (16,851 miles), maintaining the fantastic average speed of…

FINGER TREAD NOT NEW IN GERMANY Gentlemen: I couldn’t miss the article in the July issue on “Latest Trends in Tires,” by Jim Potter. I thought that you would like to know that the non-skid tire design as mentioned have been mass-produced here in Germany since at least 1949 and to the best of my knowledge before that time. This new design has been saving many lives of European drivers for many years. I guess the only reason it took certain companies so long to come out with this finger tread is that more businesses worry more about a few cents than a few lives. Pvt. Bernard R. Barteau Hersfeld, Germany We are doing additional research on tires and hope to give our readers a comprehensive report on this motoring…

DETROIT, MICHIGAN—impact of last summer’s devastating 53-day steel strike is being felt in the automobile industry now! While not as completely crippling as originally feared, the long-term results of the tremendous dispute are very likely to be noticed throughout the winter and well into spring. Delay in bringing out 1953 models, possibility of higher prices, and the chance of temporary car shortages are the most predictable effects at this time. At least three companies planned to bring out new models in October. When production stopped, these unveilings were shoved back a month. The rest of the industry is in the same position, and now it appears that the parade of new cars will get under way in November, continuing through February. Many auto experts are speculating these days on the…

If you “wore” your car like a suit of armor … instead of rattling around in it like an egg in a crate … you’d be surer of seeing the millennium, Mr. Motorist. Traffic enforcement, driver education, highway engineering have focused attention on motor accident causes—will do much to eliminate them; all too few of us have given attention to injury causes. The two are not synonymous … “a blind intersection may be the cause of an accident—the intersection does not cause a skull fracture.” Here’s a summary of the case by William W. Harper, noted physicist: “Rather than ‘strap on’ the vehicle and take advantage of its protective armor in a crash, the motorist watches the vehicle crash relatively slowly to a stop and then dashes himself violently to…

ONE OF THE MOST frequent items that we editorialize on are our road tests. We have good reason to do so, since road tests are the mainstay of MOTOR TREND. We are always striving to improve them and trying to make them mean more and more to you, both as readers and as potential car buyers. Over the period of the last two months, the MOTOR TREND Research team has tested eight cars. You can’t test as many cars as this (and as varied in style, price, and performance as they were) without thinking a little about the value and merit of our testing procedure. Nor can you write as many reports as we have about these cars without feeling that in some instances you are getting repetitious, and that…

BY NOW, as the hunting and fishing seasons draw to a close throughout the United States, innumerable sportsmen sit and brood darkly about the vast misfortunes that befall the hapless traveler. These battered brothers in sorrow remember the tent that blew down during the storm; the pack horses that stampeded with all the supplies and were never seen again; the chilly tree they sat in while the bear ate their food; the gouging motel operator who unexpectedly lifted his rates to twenty dollars a night at the start of the season; the burr-headed room clerk who fouled up the reservations; and the old family car that just couldn’t pull the house trailer up the hills. Perhaps these sportsmen do not realize that they are initiates into the old, honored fraternity…