Indholdsfortegnelse for November 1954 i MotorTrend

STUMPING THE EXPERTS Gentlemen: The “What Is It? photo on page 9 of the October issue is easily identified as a Daimler sports convertible coupe. Why “easily”? Because I have one! And what a car! Norman S. HallPasadena, Calif. P.S. Why don’t you fellows do a feature article on the Daimler? Do you know that the Park Avenue buses in New York use Daimler engines and transmissions? —N.S.H. Sorry to do this to reader Hall after that hitherto veiled bit about the buses, but he should look a little closer. There’s a tremendous resemblance, but it isn’t a Daimler, it’s a Railton! The ’39 “drophead” was identified correctly by A. C. Sampietro, of Ann Arbor, Mich., just as we went to press. —The Editors. BOUQUET Gentlemen: Congratulations on your fifth…

The late Walter P. Chrysler was referring to his own Airflow when he said that, but it describes the whole period from 1933 to 1948. WE GENERALLY THINK of engineering development as an evolutionary process … each new design evolves logically from the preceding model, and we should theoretically be able to trace design trends quite precisely. But evolution can’t explain the momentous changes in the American family car that came in the few short years from 1933 to 1940. This was a once-in-100-years engineering revolution in every sense of the word. In no other period of the industry’s history was so much done in so short a time. Except for general engine layout, your modern automobile was born out of the depression of the Thirties. Independent front suspension, modern…

WHY ENGINES wear out would seem to be a simple question to answer. Parts go up, down, or around, rubbing against each other in the process, and sooner or later the whole collection is ready for the junk pile. Try this pat definition out on a neighborhood chemist or engineer. By the time you emerge from the ensuing monologue several hours later, you may not understand all he said but it will be very clear that the subject of engine wear is not a simple one. Depending upon his profession, he stressed either the mechanical or chemical aspects of wear, but probably not both in equal proportion. This favoritism merely reflected which side he takes in a heated controversy now raging in technical circles. The argument is not that engines…

WITH TUBULAR FRAMES not too far distant for U.S. stock cars, Fiat’s latest venture into aerodynamic perfection acquires new importance (for an earlier but more radical experiment, see “Dawn of a New Day?” in the July MT). The 8V, of which a plastic prototype is shown here, has two sheet-steel shells, an inner and an outer one, welded together to form box-shaped stressed members. These are then welded integrally to the tube frame. Front and rear suspension are independent and nearly identical. Stainless steel and rubber replace chrome in the junior-size bumpers. THE MAN BELOW is Peter Krous, of Cheektowaga, N.Y. He is not just playing, but instead is demonstrating a device which he and Roger Racine have patented, and which just might upset the whole approach to the problem…

WHAT’S THE BEST THING to do when you want a new, Detroit-built car and desire the individuality that goes with modern living but not with mass-produced cars? That’s an easy one: Just order a new car, have it delivered to a skilled customizer, call in an interior decorator, an expert in leathers, and a top-notch custom upholstery shop — and wait with bated breath and about $3000 for the result! Let’s start at the beginning (there’s got to be a basis for a car that’s relatively modest, style-wise, yet completely detached from everything else, color-wise). Mrs. Joy Ferguson of Santa Barbara, Calif., wanted her new Oldsmobile Holiday to be an integral part of that unorthodox society known as Palm Springs (that’s the place where sun-pink patrons sit on pink patios…

MANY OF AMERICA’S finest sports cars and spectacular foreign imports will be exhibited at International Motor Revue & Motorama (in its fifth year), Pan-Pacific Auditorium, Los Angeles, Nov. 5-14. Besides numerous cars especially selected as house displays will be large, colorful presentations by commercial exhibitors and various automotive clubs and associations. Latter will show many unique foreign creations, some prices reaching $20,000. Other drawing cards will be most outstanding custom cars in America, plus generous display of classics, antiques, and hot rods. To represent competition will be topflight sports cars, Bonneville record holders, finalists in 1954 competitive events. Commercial booths this year will have more how-to-do-it flavor than previously, with many exhibitors conducting demonstrations during show. In all, show will feature over 100 cars, carefully chosen by editors of MOTOR…

SOUTH BEND, IND. That lusty young partnership of octogenarians, the Studebaker-Packard Corp., has already done much to change the economics of life in South Bend. Up until recently, the pattern has been Hoosier black. Throughout most of 1954, the old Studebaker wagon works (the plant still consists of many buildings built prior to 1900) ran at less than half-blast. The work-week averaged 16 hours, and every business in town felt the pinch. THEN CAME THE MERGER and the dramatic negotiations between management and workers. Studebaker, with the highest pay scale in the industry, suffered about a 47 per cent sales drop in this year’s buyer’s market. Reduced volume combined with relatively high manufacturing costs meant that many ’54 models were sold at a loss. CONTINUING IN BUSINESS without hope of…

AFTER YEARS of selling cars to you American motorists I’m convinced you want to get gypped. I’ve told you outright you’d be better off not getting a new car. The result is always the same: Either you get mad or else pretend to agree with me, then buy the new car elsewhere. You buyers hanker after the latest thing on wheels and turn a deaf ear to anyone who tries to talk you out of it. So you buy the new car—from me or one like me. I am that universal bogey, the object of tirade and rancor, joke and suspicion, the car salesman. Some of this feeling is well-founded but a lot goes back to your gullibility and greed, Mr. Motorist. You condemn us for doing what you would…

THEY FOUND the driver dead at his wheel, the engine of his heavy truck still running. It was winter; one clue was the half-empty box of headache tablets on the seat. Unfortunately, the driver had not realized what had caused his splitting headache—the deadly carbon monoxide gas from a leaky muffler. Sometimes, this insidious gas claims its victims indirectly. For instance, there is the case of the man whose car wildly careened into a streetcar loading zone. People jumped for their lives. One of them didn’t make it. Carbon monoxide, instead of alcohol, had poisoned the driver’s blood and turned him into a homicidal driver. Even when carbon monoxide fails to kill, it may leave its victims with serious after-effects. The Canadian Medical Association Journal records a case of a…

The testers could come to only one conclusion; leakage was the culprit, not evaporation. Orders went out to re-evaluate the word “permanent” as applied to antifreeze within the company. As a result, your DuPont dealer (if he follows his sales manual) will sell you anti-freeze on the basis of your needs, and in many cases, he’ll be able to tell you that you don’t really need the more expensive Zerex. Good brands of anti-freezes (both types) contain a carefully calculated amount of rust inhibitor which effectively prevents oxidation and acid formation in the radiator. This process, however, creates salts of various kinds which can be quite corrosive themselves if allowed to accumulate. This is why you shouldn’t try to save your glycol for a second year by adding more inhibitor.…

TO HASTEN THE DAY when all fathers may justifiably consider a sports car may not have been uppermost in Ambrose Cramer’s mind when he determined to have a rumble seat in his Austin-Healey. It wasn’t in his mind at all when he bought the car, but in no time his three offspring had adopted it as their property, and expansion was imperative. With the assistance of dealer Claude Phipps, also of Santa Barbara, Calif., he came up with this solution. The aluminum deck lid was first cut in two; then rear deck hinges with locking slides went on the seatback. An extra wide safety belt holds the three young Cramers in the upholstered seat, and a tonneau windshield keeps the wind out of their eyes. The fact that the Healey’s…

THE FUTURE WORLD of the gas turbine came closer this fall with two announcements from British manufacturers. The first concerned the anachronistic sedan below, and came fittingly enough from Rover, builder of the world’s first turbine car. For the past year they have been secretly driving this sedan, the first in the world to have a turbine. It is a much smaller one than on the original car; they rate it approximately 120 bhp at 50,000 rpm. Basic design principles are the same as those on the first car. A single-stage centrifugal compressor supplies air to a single combustion chamber, and the gas enters a single-stage axial flow turbine attached to the compressor, followed by a single-stage axial flow free turbine driving the road wheels through a reduction gear. The…

ROAD TESTING has become a familiar facet of the motoring scene to MOTOR TREND’S readers. You’ve seen in our road test reports photos of a car cornering hard, a car with its nose down, tail up, coming to an abrupt halt on our airport test strip, or a car plowing through snow or sand in a roadability test. In bringing you these action sequences, we’ve tried to familiarize you with our testing program. The reports themselves are designed to bring you the performance figures and impressions we’ve gleaned from a full week or more of testing. It’s hard to report on a car’s performance and at the same time give you a “story behind the story” review of the test procedure itself. MT Research feels the test results are the…

PROBABLY MORE CARS go to the junkyard because of malignant body rust than for any other reason. Once this disease starts, you have a constant battle on your hands to control it. Cure is almost impossible without major surgery in the bump shop. Your problem will vary with where you live. Coastal areas, with their moist, salt-laden air, are unkind to the surface finish of a car in any season. Where there is winter and snow, rust will bore mostly from within. Conditions are worst in what we could call the salt belt, an area bounded roughly by the tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula, Chicago, Dayton, and Buffalo. Natural salt deposits are so plentiful in Michigan, for example, that residents worry about getting a brine well when they dig for…

NOVEMBER may mean Thanksgiving to most Americans, but to those who are racing-conscious it means Mexico. Here’s a potpourri of assorted information that has come our way about the Fifth Pan-American: Much money ($117,200 U.S.) will be there for the taking, to be distributed among the first 10 winners in each of the five classes … Said classes are: European Stock, under 2000 cc (122 cubic inches); Special Series Stock, for smaller-engined U.S. cars (keep your eye on any Kaiser Manhattans here, for in spite of the standard-equipment McCulloch blower, they were still listed as eligible at presstime because of their 226-cubic-inch displacement; also on the Ford Mainline of Mickey Thompson, for with ball-joint suspension in this smaller category for the first time, the Fords will be hard to beat);…

THE FOUR-CYLINDER CLUB of America wound up its Los Angeles Motor Sports Week this year with a gymkhana, a deceptively simple contest laid out in a parking lot. The diagram on these pages has been altered from the original so that you can see the cars in action right on the course. A gymkhana’s great claim to fame is that, through its handicap system, it is a fair test not only of cars but also of the men and women driving them; in theory, at least, it should be possible for the driver of a sluggish and cumbersome car to make as good a time as any entrant. Handicaps in the contest pictured here were: sports cars, none; small family sedans, 20 seconds; large family sedans, 40 seconds. Women’s handicaps…

ISETTA Do you like a few laughs? Do you mind other people laughing at you, as well as with you? Do you like to stop traffic? Do you mind keeping alert all the while you’re driving? Would you sacrifice acceleration and cruising speed for lots of gas mileage? Do you need a second car for the wife—just adequate transportation for taking her to the store? Well, if you’ve answered “yes” to all or these, then you might be a potential customer for the Isetta, product of the Iso Works, Milan, Italy. The Isetta is a car that was introduced to this country a few short weeks ago by an enterprising young man: Joe Haines (along with his partner, L. Novak). The enterprise comes from the fact that the Isetta is…

MOTEST, a pistol-grip Recording Compression Tester, provides an instantaneous and permanent record or cylinder compression, thus giving visual evidence of engine wear. Handy Mo-Test Kit includes an angular adaptor with extensions and extra recording charts. $27.50, or $29.00 in fitted hardwood instrument case. Fisher Products, 21 44th Dr., Long Island City, N. Y. AUDIO SPEED INFORMER, the instrument that tells you by buzzer sound or warning light that you are exceeding speed limits, is easily installed within 20 minutes without drilling. After setting dial, driving over predetermined speed will set off warning signal. Cost: $14.98. Add one dollar west or Rockies. Code Industries, Inc., 625 S. Goodman St., Rochester 20, N.Y. for details. RALLY MASTER calculates average speed, gasoline mileage, distance, time. A necessity for the sports car enthusiast and…