It Looked Good on Paper

by Bill Fawcett

  Here They Go Again…the People’s Car

  Bill Fawcett

  The idea is sound. Transportation is fundamental and making a car that everyone can afford grows the economy and also opens the market to a whole new group of auto buyers. Occasionally the idea could work: Look at the VW beetle, made all over the world for almost fifty years. But when this idea goes wrong, it goes very, very wrong.

  French Retreat

  For a while the French auto industry was known for making sturdy cars. Then along came the Dauphine. This 1956 auto was the final result of the same appealing plan that had tripped up so many other companies: making an inexpensive auto that could be sold to just about everyone. But what seemed, and by the Volkswagen had been shown to be, a winning idea was lost in the execution. The car, and they eventually sold over a million of them, was the Renault Dauphine. To save money the metal in the car was thinned and the paint was so thin that rust began the moment you drove out of the showroom. And it took you a long time to drive away since the underpowered engine took 32 seconds to reach 60 mph. The car accelerated more slowly from a stop than most tractors and many other farm implements. Uncomfortable, barely equipped, and cheaply made, the Dauphine’s saving grace was that it was even less expensive than a VW. But it rarely outlasted its own warranty.

  Unsafe at Any Speed

  The book Corsair Unsafe at Any Speed was the final stake in the big car, rear engine auto’s checkered career and made Ralph Nader a national figure. The initial idea: if the rear wheels drive the vehicle, why not get rid of the heavy, long transmission and put the engine right over the drive wheels? A perfectly logical objective, but Chevrolet’s thinking should have taken a few more steps. The change also brought about a few problems. To start with, all that weight in the back meant less weight in the front and less weight over the wheels that steered the car. This gave the Corvair a tendency to spin out whenever the front wheels lost traction.

  There was also the problem of collision performance. Most accidents happen when you are moving forward. Upon impact the front of the car stops moving, but the rear continues to have momentum. With the engine in the back there was a tendency for it to continue moving that brief instant more, putting it into the passenger compartment, to the detriment of anyone who happened to be sitting there—like the driver and passengers. This problem was already known in Europe. When the Nazi Army occupied Czechoslovakia they confiscated a large number of Tatras, a rear engine Czech auto. Rather quickly these cars were found to be so dangerous that German soldiers were banned from riding in them.

  Added to the rest of its safety problems was the fact that the Corvair’s single piece steering column had nothing in front of or around it to stop it from being pushed like a pike into the driver’s chest in any serious front-end collision. Just to make sure that the relatively light front end made the car a death trap, a gas driven heater was included. This used a gas flame to heat the car rather than the engine’s heat, which meant the air in a closed Corvair in winter was a nasty soup of unburned carbons and other gases put out by the heater. Not to mention that the gas in the heater was itself a hazard in any collision. So the Corvair was a good idea, but it was also a deathtrap with several health-threatening design flaws.

  Trabant

  In 1975, the wise heads of the East German communist state suddenly realized they needed a people’s car to compete with the Volkswagen being sold in West Germany. Their answer was the Trabant. Even today you get an embarrassed blush from those few last, hard-core holdout German communists just by mentioning the name. This “people’s car” had a body made of fiberglass mixed with plant fibers. The good news was that it did not rust; the bad news was that you could practically put your fist through it. The engine was made to such loose tolerances that it smoked as you drove and generated only feeble acceleration. To save on cost, unnecessary safety items like turn signals and brake lights were never included. Even so, it was all that most people in East Germany could get for many years. Then the wall came down, the Germanys merged, and in the vehicles’ last moment of glory the highways running west were filled with “Trabis” packed with everything each family had. Within weeks West Germany was filled with abandoned Trabants whose owners, when given the chance, had discarded them as quickly as they had communism itself.

  Communist Redux

  The Communist nations were not satisfied with the failure of the Trabant. Yugoslavia too developed a people’s car, the Yugo. A list of the 1985 Yugo’s failings would simply be that of the Trabant (except for the plastic body) with new additions like constantly stalling engines and failing electrical systems. What was most surprising about this people’s auto was that Malcolm Bricklin began importing these beauties to the United States in 1985. The imports featured the same high level of quality as the Yugoslavian vehicles and a few added features such as a rear window defroster. The defroster came in handy as the Yugo engine had a tendency to freeze or even throw a rod or two without any warning. The defroster was said to keep your hands warm while pushing your Yugo off the road. The car provided far more jokes for comedians than sales.

  “The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful? That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”

  —Karl Lagerfeld

  Built Ford Tinderbox Tough

  Joshua Spivak

  In the late 1960s, Detroit’s Big Three car manufacturers, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, ruled the automotive world with little foreign competition. But cars were becoming more and more expensive. Always looking to increase their market share, Ford Motors Company decided to design a cheap subcompact car especially for frugal shoppers. They created the Ford Pinto, succeeding in the primary goal of keeping the cost of the car down.

  Lee Iacocca, then a Ford vice president, trumpeted the Pinto model on the price tag and their corresponding profit margins. Iacocca managed to convince Chairman Henry Ford II that the cheap subcompact would sell. Costing Ford less than two thousand dollars to produce and priced cheaply, the Pinto did indeed outsell many competitors. But the Pinto also had a number of serious design flaws.

  First, in order to save valuable trunk space, the gas tank was located in a precarious position behind the rear axle. Second, the Pinto lacked a five dollar and eight cent rubber bladder, which would have contained oil spills when the tank was punctured. Third, a one-dollar plastic baffle to prevent the gas tank from being punctured by sharp bolts in the differential housing was somehow never included in the production model. Finally, the rear bumper offered little more than ornamentation, which further limited the car’s ability to handle an impact. As a result, if a car hit the Pinto from behind at speeds over twenty miles per hour, the gas tank would frequently break, fuel would spill, and, often enough, the car caught fire.

  Though Ford faced a number of car-fire inspired injury and death lawsuits, the company deftly avoided bad Pinto press. However, a 1972 accident, which caused the death of a woman and severe burns to a thirteen-year-old passenger, led to a highly sensational 1977 trial. As the trial got underway, a Pulitzer Prize–winning article in Mother Jones Magazine forever imprinted in the nation’s mind the Pinto as a “firetrap” and “the barbecue that seats four.” “Pinto Madness,” written by Mark Dowie, detailed numerous flaws with the Pinto’s design, and claimed that hundreds of people died due to the Pinto’s propensity to catch fire. Dowie then launched a devastating indictment against Ford’s lack of care for the safety of passengers.

  The article claimed there was a simple reason for the automotive giant’s failure to include protective designs and devices: the safer engineering was simply not cost-effective. Using cost-benefit analysis memos written by Ford executives, Dowie argued that Ford employed a combination of deliberately specious mathematical models, bureaucratic and legislative delaying tactics, and cold-blooded cor
porate greed to justify the sale of a dangerous vehicle.

  While Ford tried to handle the fallout from the article, the company got slapped with verdicts of five hundred sixty thousand dollars for the woman’s family, and two and a half million dollars for the thirteen-year-old boy, in compensatory damages. The jury also saw fit to punish Ford with one hundred and twenty five million dollars in punitive damages (later reduced by the judge to three and a half million dollars).

  Despite Ford’s denials, the media feeding frenzy increased.

  In 1978, a scathing 60 Minutes report further inflated the casualty figures. The Ford memos on the costs of safety improvements grabbed tons of headlines. Though there have been significant questions as to whether the Pinto was actually as dangerous as its opponents claimed, Ford buckled under the pressure and recalled one and half a million Pintos and thirty thousand Mercury Bobcats (a twin of the Pinto). The recall cost Ford up to forty million dollars. Even worse, Ford faced a 1978 Indiana criminal indictment on charges of reckless homicide. The company managed to beat back the prosecutors, preventing a verdict which would have resulted in fines of up to ten thousand dollars per death, not to mention millions in bad publicity.

  But for the Pinto, the damage was done. Sales quickly dropped off, and, after 1980, the car was discontinued. Lee Iacocca, a golden boy of Detroit, also did not escape the Pinto scandal unscathed. He was fired one month after the Pinto recall.

  The plan for the Ford Pinto was a solid one. As the Japanese manufacturers would show, Americans wanted cheap cars. They just didn’t want them to be tinderboxes on wheels.

  Like a fish out of water…

  The Quirky Little Amphicar

  Douglas Niles and Donald Niles, Sr.

  It’s a classic of James Bond–type spy stories: the snappy sports car that turns into a speedboat, an airplane, perhaps even a submarine. What adventure-loving motorist wouldn’t love to be able to alter the medium through which his vehicle traveled? In the early 1960s, a small German company actually made it happen—and it was a design that not only looked good on paper, but actually worked!

  It just didn’t sell.

  The newly designed automobile/boat hybrid was introduced in 1962. Called the Amphicar, it was billed as the first non-military amphibious vehicle ever put into commercial production. Although somewhat boxy by sports car standards, it was a cute enough little convertible, capable of carrying four passengers. Powered by a forty-three horsepower Triumph engine, it could tool along at 70 mph on land. It was equipped with a unique transmission that could deliver power either to the drive wheels, or to the twin propellers located below the rear bumper.

  The real fun began when the operator drove his Amphicar down a boat ramp or other sloping incline into the water. The doors were double sealed to make them watertight—the car was equipped with a bilge pump, just in case—and a shift of the transmission lever started the twin props churning. The vehicle was capable of about six knots in the water, and had only about a foot or so of clearance between the water line and the top of the doors—so rough waters were to be avoided! Interestingly enough, the front wheels steered the car both on the ground and in the water, where they created enough of a rudder effect to allow the Amphicar to turn. A second transmission lever allowed the propellers to be reversed for backing up while afloat.

  The Amphicar retailed for about $3,300 in 1962—a little less than a Chevy Corvette of the same period. By 1967, the price of the Amphicar had come down to less than $2,000. More than 90 percent of the approximately 4,000 Amphicars produced went to the United States market. The factory, in West Berlin, was geared up for annual production of some 20,000, but in fact never came close to that total—indeed, some parts in the original production inventory never even had to be reordered.

  The reasons for the lack of sales success were not due to its faulty design, but perhaps were rooted in the fact that the company employed a full staff of engineers but no marketing or sales department. It was hoped that word of mouth would spread the news about this quirky little vehicle, but that was simply not enough publicity for it ever to really catch on.

  Complications also arose in the American market in 1968, when the fledgling Environmental Protection Agency began to introduce emission controls to combat the growing problem of air pollution. The emission restrictions proved too much of an engineering hurdle for the doughty little company, and with the loss of its largest market, it was forced to close.

  Still, it was a successful design, and possessed—and continues to possess—a real niche appeal. It has proven quite durable—some 20 percent of them are still around, forty-five years after their introduction—which makes an impressive contrast to the survival rate of heavier and larger cars manufactured during the same period. There remains to this day an International Amphicar Owners Club, with active chapters in Chicago and Minneapolis, among other places. They meet for an annual swim-in at Celina, Ohio. It is also claimed that an Amphicar has crossed the English Channel in bad weather, which is hard to believe for anyone who has seen one afloat. (Perhaps they affixed a very heavy-duty waterproof top!) On the other hand, more than one Amphicar was lost when it entered the water after the owner or operator had forgotten to reinstall the bilge plug.

  Perhaps, as with so many inventions, the real success of the Amphicar will be found in the legacy of future amphibious vehicle designs, several of which have been recently introduced. An English company produces the Aqua Sports Amphibian, which is capable of 100 mph on land and some 25 knots in the water—it can even tow a water skier! Although advertised as a commuter vehicle for commuters who wish to avoid traffic jams, the price—a cool quarter of a million dollars—keeps it out of most people’s hands.

  Another aquatic vehicle, the Hydra Spyder, offers a Corvette engine and a jet drive for water use, and retails for only about $150,000. The Hydra Wind is yet a third amphibious vehicle, which is a combination of a touring bus and a motor yacht, for when you want to take a really large group of friends for a combined water and land ride. On land, it resembles a large motor home, while in the water it resembles, well, a large motor home floating in the water.

  Even the original Amphicar is still available, albeit as a collector’s item. But a host of Web sites and organizations keep not only the memory, but also the reality, of this cool little car alive, and afloat.

  It is safe to say that the world has not heard the last of the amphibious automobile.

  Plane Thinking

  What goes up must come down. Of course that assumes the plane or jet can take off to start with. From the beginning, the saga of air travel has been punctuated not only by incredible breakthroughs, but also the occasional incredibly bad idea. If you bought this book in an airport and are flying, this editor recommends you maybe skip this section until you are back on the ground.

  “If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run—and often in the short one—the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”

  —Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951

  The Spectacular Failure of the Langley Aerodrome

  Douglas Niles and Donald Niles, Sr.

  The Man Who Almost Beat the Wright Brothers into the Sky

  Samuel Pierpont Langley was the Directing Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution during the latter part of the nineteenth and the early years of the twentieth centuries. Like many other inventors of the period, he was determined to create an engine-powered heavier-than-air flying machine that could carry a man through the skies. He termed this device the Aerodrome, after the Greek for air-runner.

  Beginning in 1894, Langley’s designs were put to the test. Unlike the Wright Brothers, however, Langley was a project director, not a hands-on technician and inventor. As the director of the largest museum institution in North America, he had many responsibilities to keep him busy, but also had access to a staff of engineers, craftsmen, and technicians who could be assigned to do the act
ual work of building the flying machine.

  Langley’s flying experiments were tested from a large boat anchored in the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C. The first unmanned aerodromes failed to fly, but by 1896 Langley’s team had created a machine that could be launched by catapult, and was capable of flying more or less straight and level for more than half a mile. Even so, the machine was too small and underpowered to carry a person, so the Smithsonian director turned his efforts toward the creation of an engine powerful enough to lift a heavier machine.

  In this he was largely successful, though, as with the rest of “his” work, it was not Langley who did the actual inventing. Furthermore, his estimation of the amount of power required was just that: an educated guess. Unlike the Wright Brothers, who constructed a wind tunnel and studied the behavior of an airfoil under actual conditions of lift—they concluded that about ten horsepower (hp) would be required—Langley’s efforts were directed toward building the most powerful engine possible.

  The first designer, Stephen Blazer, created a rotary engine capable of generating about eight hp. Next to work on it was Charles Manly, who improved it immensely, and built a truly superior engine. A water-cooled radial design, it was capable of generating some 52 hp.

  Although his Smithsonian team had begun working with a four-year head start over the Wright Brothers, in Ohio the Wrights possessed insight and skill that the bureaucratically inclined Langley couldn’t match. Based on the success of his unmanned flyer, Langley seemed to think that all he needed was a more powerful engine and a larger machine. He failed to grasp two key details that Wilbur and Orville Wright learned through their own experimentation.