UNCONVENTIONAL DESIGN.
Page 9
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• By " The Inspector."
THE PRESENT IS CERTAINLY not an inappropriate time to discuss as fully as possible the various aspects of present and future design problems. The columns of this journal have recently included several contributions of considerable interest dealing with considerations of this kind. In recent articles, both editorial and contributory, opinions have been expressed that, while the basis principles upon which the modern commercial vehicle, in its various types, has been conceived, are not likely to be varied in the near future in any particularly startling manner, yet, it must be agreed that there is room for much development in such well-known classes as those of the steam wagon, the lorry, the commercial van and the electric chassis.
The publication in a recent issue of TEE COMMERCIAL MOTOR of a description of a steam-wagon chassis embodying a number of most interesting departures from conventional practice—Garrett's London traffic model—naturally raises the question as to whether there is not a too usual tendency to confine alterations to what are essentially only modifications of existing practice. Is there not a good deal to be said for the school of thought which starts de 710170, and endeavours to produce improvements without too nice a regard for existing design which is often in danger of becoming perpetuated largely because it has 'become the fashion, or because, on the face of it, there appears to be no particular reason for innova tion?
The Garrett steam wagon that has been mentioned is a perfectly logical achievement, developed with the sole idea of procuring that the driver of the machine shall have at least as unrestricted a view of the roadway ahead of him as has his colleague of the petrol or electric chassis. To effect this it has been necessary entirely to abandon the accepted conventional arrangement of the control gear, including the boiler fittings, to the rear of the firebox. The whole design has, as it were, largely been turned inside out, with what appears to be very useful results.
That most successful of steam-wagon designs, the Foden, the originators of which have been paid such wide compliment by other producers of steam roadcraft, is, in reality, nothing but a clever adapta4on of steam-traction-engine practice ' which in itself borrowed much from the arrangements earlier found most suitable in connection with the rail locomotive. Yet here at this late date it has been thought, and thought rightly, to be worth while to break. away from such successful convention, and to challenge the ultimate suitability of its general arrangement. Garretts have already been prominent in this direction in their design of agricultural steani tractor to which they gave the name of the "Suffolk Punch" —the machine was described in THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR dated 18th October, 1917.
Is there not just the possibility that designers of petrol and, to a less extent, of electric chassis, in con. siclering their latest improvements do not sufficiently shun the assumption that the model which embodies the four-cylinder vertical engine, the friction clutch, the stepped gearbox and the live axle, is necessarily the one and only practicable general arrangement 7 It is true that all sorts of other arrangements have been tried in the long ago, and, in most cases, were early abandoned, but that does not necessarily suggest that they may not have held something good in principle for which more reason would be discovered in modern conditions.
Quite a number of years ago, a writer in this journal put forward this same suggestion that he and other designers were inclined to take the fashionable arrangement of chassis too much for granted, and he suggested, for an example, the possible elimination of the bonnet. It was not quite clear what advantage he hoped to secure from such a modification, unless it could have been that of ensuring a free current of air past the cylinders, but he discussed with some ability the possibility of so re-designing the petrol engine and its various subsidiary fittings as to make them weatherproof to at least as great an extent as that found in the design of the steam locomotive, for instance, and in this way of dispensing with the conventional bonnet and so rendering the engine more quickly accessible.
There is much talk of post-war models just now, to such' an extent indeed as to cause the curiosity of the motoring public to be whetted in this direction. Many of the latter are at least expecting the ultimate introduction in peace time of models which will show more or less revolutionary characteristics. It may be, or it may not be, that any such upheaval in anticipated practice is necessary, but, at any rate, it caar do little harm to learn a lesson from the Garrett way of looking at things. When designers are contemplating the productionof new models they might at least endeavour to frame their conception of what is best for modern conditions without any decision ta accept without criticism all that has been achieved t6 date. It is a relatively easy thing to improve to sorffc extent on any given design by the embodiment of more or less important refinements or additions. But it is not so easy a task, and certainly not one so frequently undertaken, to produce a model which throughout is conceived afresh. II ever this is to be done in the future, the interval imposed by the war -afford's an excellent opportunity for such an effort.
There appears to be much in the suggestion that designers are far too inclined to build their edifices of bricks of the same pattern as those used by their predecessors—even if they use a different bond and arrange them in somewhat different pattern. It is a long day since so novel a departure has been offered to the public as when the Mercedes first appeared with all its entirely novel features. if we are going to have post-war models, at least let them be revelations of original British thought and not only more or less clever developments of conventional practice.