The Car of the Future
I.trr.tc-s this theme with some trepidation, as there are so many others far better qualified than nryseif to peer into the future of the motor-car.. However, I shall not deal with those cars,of the future-.that, as soon as fair opportunity offers, may leave the ground altogether and take to themselves 4 third dimension of free movement, nor with those that, entirciess, may derive, ,theit power faint aerials which will pick up their energy from a chain of broadcasting stations.
Thec are possibilities which I am equipped neither to defend
nor to deny. I can see them readily enough in my mind's eye, but I cannot visualize their details. The car of the more
!mediate future has, however, sharper outlines, and is susceptible to sonic kind of description, even if it be rather a loose one.
fiat before attempting to cope with the subject it is necessary to point out that progress in car design is inevitably somewhat slow. In the first place, all improvement, of late years at all events, has been confined to details, and it is to be supposed that. ibis state of affairs. will continue for a considerable one. There is no reason to expect, at any early date, a adical change in principle such as might be brought about the introduction of an internal combustion turbine in a ractieal• form. The overwhelming probability is that erelopment will tend to slow down rather than to speed up, or the motor industry to-day is a very big affair and possesses huge inertia which must inevitably tend to resist sudden itanges.
Twenty years ago, when cars were made in batches of half dozen or even less, production was so elastic that a new lea could be easily introduced without upsetting it to any mous extent. To-day, when cars of a specific type are made the thousand, this is not so ; even a trifling modification their design may involve discontinuity of output nd the expenditure of enormous sums of money in aellinery.
On the other hand there are certain tendencies, already pearly marked, which give abundant evidence of continuing. ne is the multi-cylinder idea in engine design. I would esitate to set any limit to the number of cylinders which the 'ear of the future " will possess, even though its engine will robaldy be of quite small capacity. Day by day it is being ore convincingly shown that, from every point of view, it better to have your power delivered in the form of a large 'umber of, so to speak, " little pats " rather than in the arm of much fewer and much bigger " thumps." The more }Minders there are the less the weight of the partS that have to ove up and down and that are consecpently. subject .to the eatest mechanical stresses. The more numerous. the cylinders he smoother the driving effort, the less the vibration, the nicker the acceleration,' and the greater the 'scope of slow- ' ailing speed and hill-clirribing on top-gear. All. this. akes the car nicer to handle and ]promotes its road per-; trmance.
Another clear tendency only just beginning to show itself reduction in the weight and size of cars. Hitherto, in nieriea, cars have been steadily becoming heavier and sore powerful, but now a change has set in, and it is well Down that many of the leading designers arc devoting lemselves, under the force of British example and corn- tition, to the production of much lighter cars, yet answering ° the same .standard of luxury. Traffic conditions and :mornic pressure are alike in favour of the smaller car, "fel we shall have the big vehicle with us for some years
to come, unless, of course, the Chancellor of the Exchequer decides to tax it out of existence.
A reform that we may reasonably expect to see brought about in the comparatively near future is a distinct change in the gear-box. It cannot be many years before gear- changing ecaSes to be the bugbear that it is to-day for so many thousands of owner-drivers, especially of the smaller and cheaper sorts of ear. That does not mean that the gear- box will be eliminated altogether—as -there arc plenty of cars to-day which can be driven for thousands of miles on end without any absolute necessity for ever moving the speed lever from its top-gear position—but merely that all its shortcomings will be removed. You will probably only have to touch a button or lever on the steering wheel to get any gear change you like carried out instantly, silently and automatically. Again, it is not improbable that the (practically) infinitely variable gear, of which the existing ConstantinoNeo torque-converter is a leading example, may take the place of both clutch and gear-box on that type of car in which full advantage can he taken of this method of power transmission.
Meanwhile, it is to be remembered that, even as engines are now being made to. develop a steadily increasing power in proportion to their dimensions, they are also being made to require fewer gear changes, even when they. are of com- paratively- small rating. The simple fact is that they normally run at higher speeds. It is quite possible—I will not say probable—that 10,000 revolutions per minute will in the course of a few years he regarded as quite ordinary for the engine, of a light sporting car.
As to whether the car of the future will have its engine under a bonnet in front, or hidden away in a reeptacic at the tail-end, is a matter on which I cannot form a deeded judgment. There is much to be said for the " engine behind " idea, but there are also the forces of habit and prejudice to consider, and it would be a bold designer who proposed so drastic a change of construction unless he could point to overwhelming benefits.
For my own part I believe that just as the motor-car has revolutionized traffic conditions during the past few years, so the reflex action will take place in the near future, and we shall have traffic conditions influencing, if not dictating, the design of motor-cars. In spite of the fact that several million people in Great Britain now enjoy cheap and efficient transport which, one might have supposed, would have enabled them to live in the country, the undeniable fact is that centres of population are becoming more densely congested than ever. This is a thing of which no motor manufacturer can afford to lose sight, for certainly four-fifths of all the ears turned out They the present time serve partially utilitarian purposes...-- They- are not the means of getting away from towns half so much as they are of getting into them. Traffic congestion is already- showing symptoms of defeating the primary object of . mechanical transport, and we are thus faced with the need of remodelling our cities and constructing new arteries along which circulation can take place without undue hindrance. The extent to which we react to these pressures will largely determine the form that the " car of the future " is to assume.
Personally, I think that the modern racing car is the prototype of the vehicles that will come into general use twenty years hence. But I may be biassed on the subject !
H. 0. D. SisortAvE.
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