Indholdsfortegnelse for March 1953 i MotorTrend

IN A RECENT ISSUE of Printers’ Ink, the weekly magazine of advertising, management, and sales, we came across an article dealing with a subject we’ve felt strongly about for some time. It was set down so effectively that we’d like to quote from it. Ernest Callenbach, the author, has made a detailed study of automobile advertising copy, comparing copy of 1934 against that used at present. His main observations: the word new (is used) a lot more … They talk white sidewalls always and mention prices almost never … There are fewer references to perfection, more to style. Quantitative descriptions have declined …” Aside from presenting these observations with a detailed elaboration on each of these points, the most important assertion (to us) that Callenbach makes is, … Presumably they…

DEPRECIATION ACCELERATION FEUL CONSUMPTION THE TOUCH of casual magnificence,” announces the Lincoln brochure “… Designed for the world you move in.” If all of us do not move in worlds of casual magnificence, we must at least admit that the 1953 Lincoln is a modern and worth-while addition to the U.S. fine-car field. At the time of its introduction the most powerful American automobile (205 hp), the Lincoln teams its capable engine with an air of compact but unstinting luxury and an as-yet-unsurpassed number of power-driven optional extras to give extreme driving ease. These include power steering (in the Lincoln, this is a cross between the Chrysler and GM types, using a fairly quick ratio but taking over only after four to seven pounds of effort are applied to the…

WHAT IS THE MOST outstanding change in the ’53 Plymouth? According to a consensus by the MT Research staff, the most noticeable and welcomed improvement is in the exterior styling. When we went to the Plymouth Motor Company’s plant in Los Angeles to pick up our test car, a Cranbrook four-door sedan equipped with automatic overdrive, we were again pleased with the car’s new look! That boxy appearance of previous models has disappeared and in its place is a new sweep and grace which was altogether pleasing to our critical eye. Though lower than the ’52, the new Cranbrook has more room in the car’s interior and luggage compartment. Engineers have designed the car for more headroom, greater legroom, and more hip and shoulder space. This is a notable accomplishment…

STUDEBAKER has done it again! Just seven years ago—in 1946—the firm in South Bend, Indiana, brought out a line of cars which kicked off a major style trend! Now, for the second time in less than a decade this doughty independent boldly introduces a series of cars which is sure to shake the styling sections of every other American company right down to their last blueprint and full-color rendition! If the U.S. car buyer really wants the low, clean lines of the post-war European school of design, then here it is! Gone is the impression of great masses of steel, highlighted with chrome and other ersatz ornamentation. In its place are motion and beauty created brilliantly by the form of the metal itself. Grace and fleetness of movement are implied…

NOTE: Here is the first article in a new series on highway vacationing in the United States, prepared in cooperation with the American Automobile Association. The volume of recreational travel in this country has reached a new peak, with 72,000.000 Americans taking a vacation trip sometime during the year —and 85 per cent going in private passenger cars. Where are you planning to go next? Here's a good opportunity to get the advice of AAA experts, in a series designed not only as a matter of interest but as a practical guide to better vacationing—Editor. FOR WEEKS WE HAD pored eagerly over large maps, booklets, and multicolored folders, carefully planning our trip into the six New England states — Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. All of…

In any automobile efficient carburetion Raiiye is desirable … In a sports car it is a “must”! For the instant responsiveness that distinguishes sports car performance is dependent on efficient carburetion. Precision-built SOLEX Carburetors provide efficient carburetion for every driving requirement—a perfect mixture of fuel and air for quick starting, for fast acceleration in all gears, for smooth idling in heavy traffic and for maximum power and speed in hill-climbing and races. SOLEX Carburetors are serving on more than fifteen million cars, including the Citroen, Renault, Simca, Hillman, Mercedes, Porsche and other famous European makes. There are models for every imported car in this country. They are sold and installed exclusively by Autocessories Ltd. dealers. For full details on SOLEX Carburetors and other Arnolt Autocessories and the name of the…

THE SWIFTLY BURGEONING American sports car manufacturing program, forecast several months ago in these pages, finally slides into high gear. Four General Motors divisions unveil high-performance Fiberglas prototype models, with at least one of them known to have definite plans for limited production. This fact is most likely a bellwether indicating the other GM divisions will also market such cars as soon as public reaction is sampled—favorably of course. In addition, Nash is bringing out a hardtop version of its pioneering Nash-Healey; while Ford is understood to be rushing a sports car model to completion. Designer is said to be George Walker, who has collaborated on several of the more recent styles which grace Rouge Iron. Chevrolet’s two-seater is one of the most striking of the new offerings. Furthermore. its…

STOCK CAR RACING, rejuvenated after the war, has proved one thing conclusively. The modern passenger car is totally unsuitable for extreme and hard usage! There is another little proved item, too. that I think is criminally overlooked. Stock car racing has proved that 75 per cent of highway fatalities are unnecessary! The thrill show boys, originally, and for the past seven years stock car race drivers, have subjected themselves to every violent type of accident possible, and in only rare instances suffered injury or death. It seems to me that the experts seeking a solution to the highway accident death rate would do well to investigate stock car racing. If you expect me to tell you stock car racing has been responsible for most of the new features in our…

IM BACK HOME AGAIN from Mexico, and there hasn’t been a moment’s peace: one invitation follows another, the same with honor presentations. All Germany is celebrating the Mexican victory of its Mercedes team. All of us on the team regretted that our anticipated trip to the United States did not come off, since political narrow-mindedness was carried to an extreme and Lang and Neubauer were refused entry to the U.S., Lang because he had been “politically involved” (he received racing awards from the Third Reich) and Neubauer because he is claimed to have belonged to the Nazi Party before 1933 (he says he never was a member). Was the whole affair necessary after the American driver John Fitch, for the first time after this terrible war, joined his German comrades…

SUPPOSE YOU CAME TO A crossroads in your life and had to choose between a fascinating woman like the one shown here and a fabulous automotive beauty? What to do? Take the car! The woman will respect your exquisite taste for beauty—and will be happy to let you chauffeur her in that dream car for the rest of her life. Turn your back on the car for her sake—and she’ll be hopping off with the guy who has the good judgment to grab the auto. Any wide-awake girl knows that a beauty belongs inside a beautiful car. So let’s open the door to the lovely and be off to put beauty on parade. Because the car is a useful object, its design naturally should be highly functional. Within reasonable limits…

TODAY’S MOTORIST has his choice of many gadgets and gimmicks to test the efficiency of his vehicle. MT Research believes the PerfOMeter to be one of the best. Used intelligently, it gives a very complete picture of the performance of any automobile. Unlike a vacuum gauge, it will not help you to improve your driving habits, except as they concern the use of different fuels, lubricants, and engine accessories. The basic principle of the PerfOMeter is that of the pendulum. The forces of acceleration and deceleration act on the pendulum, which is geared to the recording needle. To insure accurate and steady readings the pendulum is completely immersed in an oil bath, retarding any tendency to give an inaccurate reading due to its own unchecked inertia. The PerfOMeter can be…

HAVE YOU ALWAYS wanted to earn your living with your ideas for cars, or for other mass-produced products? Have you often thought you could do a better job than Detroit? This competition to determine five winners may be your chance to put a professional polish on those ideas—in short, to earn a complete free four-year tuition scholarship to one of America’s most respected design schools, the famed Art Center in Los Angeles. And that’s not all: MOTOR TREND will award a handsome plaque to each winner, and when the five winners complete their course, they will be given special consideration for jobs in the styling sections of major automobile companies. We want to see several of your drawings and sketches, for cars and, if your dreams have run more in…

A VERY HEALTHY TREND seems to be reviving in the automobile business this year. Its name is competition, and to make prospects even brighter, it centers in the low-priced field. Many an enterprising manufacturer has tried intermittently to grab sales from the Big Three, with varying degrees of success. The most consistent threats to the low- price field have been various models that Studebaker and Nash have produced. Hudson has made repeated attempts: the Essex, the Terraplane, the 112. For 1953 they are going to have another crack at it, and unless we miss our guess they are better armed than ever before. In fact—particularly performancewise—they are very well armed indeed. With its price of $1685 FOB Detroit, the new Hudson Jet competes directly with the Plymouth Concord; its running…

COMFORT HAS BEEN the greatest motivating design factor in American cars for many years, yet one phase of it, until now, has been sadly neglected. We have been provided with roomy interiors, soft seats, the boulevard ride, and elaborate heating systems to keep us warm. The neglected portion of our comfort becomes extremely evident throughout most of the country when summer rolls around and we should all have more fun in our cars. When we leave the shop, office or beach to climb into a car that has been parked for hours in a hot summer sun, the well- known turkish bath effect is produced which guarantees to irritate the mildest of dispositions. During vacation or business trips, the scenery or the business often becomes secondary to keeping cool on…

NOTE: In this article, one of Motor Trend’s writers makes a second visit to the Barris Kustom Shop. He was assigned to ferret out the most popular interior customizing trends. He was asked to check on the prices for all work. While the prices for this work vary in different areas, the results of this tape-recorded interview will prove of interest to you.—Editor. SCENE: The Barris Kustom Shop, Lynwood, California. Bob Behme has just entered. George Barris, who has been spraying a car, cuts off the paint gun and shakes hands. Sam Barris has been chopping a car. He joins the group. SAM: Want some more work done on that wreck of yours, Bob? BOB: Not today, boys. My editor has given me an assignment to find out just how…

LIKE THIS PICTURE of the “razor edge’’ on a British Bentley? Maybe you don’t know why — you “just like cars.” If the picture pleases you, you’re getting a charge out of art — the automobile as art. Those sharp, clean-flowing lines are as esthetically satisfying to the artist as to the auto enthusiast and can give the same kind of thrill as a Velasquez Venus or a Michelangelo David. The first dreamer of the automobile was himself a master artist, although a model of his dream is a flat-wheeled cart, painfully functional. That was Leonardo da Vinci, whose automobile rolled no farther than his drawing board. Automotive pioneers first had to work out the primitive mechanical principles of the car before making the functional machine also a thing of…

NOTE: In prior issues of Motor Trend, we asked our readers to mail us data, history and photographs of their classic cars. The majority of pictures we have received have been small snapshots, lacking in detail, which would not reproduce properly. For this reason, we again urge our readers to send us larger pictures with good detail, contrast and uncomplicated backgrounds. Our column this month consists of answers to a portion of the letters mailed to us by readers. So, into the mail bag as space will permit.— R.J.B. TO ALL CLASSIC FANS. Good classics are becoming more and more scarce. As a result, many fans, old and new, experienced and inexperienced, are restoring vintage Plymouths, Reos, Franklins, and Chevs to mint condition. We call them special-interest cars and they…

THE TASK of painting one’s own car has in the past been attempted only by either the extremely brave or the sublimely naive. In either case the results were always in doubt. There has long been a need for some simple method, short of spray guns and the like, to accomplish this job. With the advent of the Arco Company’s “Pad-O’-Paint” kit, the problem becomes a little less complex. With reasonable care a good finish can be obtained, and the family chariot can attain a modicum of its former glory. Pad-O’-Paint is a hand-applied, quick drying enamel that will cover smoothly old paint (for horses of a different color) be it lacquer or enamel. We found that a very professional finish can be obtained if preparation of the surface is…