The Changing Styles in Motor Cars

What is Coming Next is a Query the Motoring Public Must Answer for Itself

VANITY FAIR'S OBSERVER

LET'S see—where were we? Oh, yes— there was a war and motor car proeduction abroad nearly ceased, while in the United States some manufacturers were forced to turn most of their attention to making other things. Those who continued to build cars did so with the single idea of making them mechanically efficient for war service. Styles in bodies were forgotten. Now, however, the question is up again, very much up. It has been claimed that during the enforced idleness of European body plants American designers have forged ahead so rapidly, except for the short interval during which we were among those present in the embroglio, that as tailors of cars de luxe, we have become forever the world leaders. Let us hope so, but again, let's see.

Ideas which have been buzzing around in the brains of continental body builders since hostilities began, are now beginning to reach our shores, on beautiful Renaults, Peugeots and other well known European makes of cars. Production on the other side has hardly begun again, but there is no doubt that within a year some worth-while new thoughts on motor car styles and features will be brought out in England, France and Italy. American designers know there is competition coming. It cannot for many years be competition in quantity production, therefore it will be a battle of original ideas not only in the lines and equipment of car bodies, but in mechanical features and innovations.

American cars are going through a period of intense refinement. Features which have been identified for years with well known makes are being cast out bodily, sunk without a trace. Probably you will never see again the incurved radiator, which has been one of the distinguishing marks of the Reo. It has been replaced in the new models by a good looking vertical design, more in keeping with present tendencies. The familiar pointed prow of the increasingly popular Stanley steamer had disappeared in the five-passenger roadster and sedan models, in favor of a radiator and hood of pleasing uprightness and curves The hump which has broken the long hood-line of the Winton touring car has, like the old soldier, simply faded away, and now the Winton has a beautiful long body of the so-called streamline type, with a rich sweep of straight line from stem to stern. This is only a few out of many.

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The cars of the next year are going to be lower and longer. In closed cars this effect will be produced not only by lowering the frame and lengthening the body, but by the elimination of the high crowned top in favor of a flat roof with almost a straight line from front to rear. It would seem almost as if the limit had been reached in the matter of car fittings, and with people of taste and discernment, I find a tendency to purchase cars which are extremely simple in design, coloring and fitting. A motor car is not a five and ten cent store, although you will see many in mawkish colors of body and upholstery, and a multiplicity of vacuum bottles, poker sets and chewing gum receptacles, the idea of fittings seems to be settling down to the adoption of those which are best and most necessary, and the elimination of those which are purely for show.

Improvements in spring suspensions are going to be one of the big developments of the future. The modern car does not respond as well as it might to varying road conditions, and as long as we have so many abominable roads in this country, it seems to be incumbent upon the manufacturers to overcome their bumpy surfaces by mechanical ingenuity. In this respect great claims are made for the new type of spring suspension as used in the little Overland Four.

It seems to be certain that the forthcoming year will see a great gain in the number of six cylinder motors. Eight cylinder cars are still popular, while the motor of twelve cylinders is used now by only one of the really important builders. High pressure oiling is being adopted in many places in place of the old splash system. Bearings without shims are also coming. Crank shafts will be heavier to do away with the vibration caused by distortion of the light shaft after moderate operation. Manufacturers are paying a great deal of attention to the elimination of the multiplicity of oil cups, which have been such a bugbear to the man who took care of them, and such a cause of financial loss to the man who neglected them. Prices are going to be higher all along the line, and cars will be hard to obtain for many months to come. In this latter connection the recent steel strike did the industry and the motoring public no good.

Among the new models we shall see. on the road in the near future, which' are considerably different from previous designs, will be those of the Reo, Winton, Stanley, Marmon, Premier, Stutz, National, Velie, Biddle, National, Owen Magnetic, and others. It is stated that Marmon is going to bring out a model with a new cast iron engine of greater power and more flexibility than its aluminum engine, that Premier is producing a new model with body of Fleetwood, embodying an improved magnetic gear shaft, with all controls on the quadrant, and that Owen Magnetic and Biddle are both having their new models built on a new chassis, and that both are employing the Entz system of magnetic transmission this season.

Other new cars we shall see will include the Lincoln, the new Willys Six, the Nash Four, the Commonwealth, the Lafayette, the Reborn Stevens-Duryea, the du Pont, the Willys Six, the H. C. S., the Waldon & Sherbondy, the Packard Six, the Gardner Four, and the Leach.

The new post-war Renault, which was among the first of the European made cars to reach the American market, has a number of interesting new features, including a silent single unit S. F. V. starting system attached to the crank shaft at'-the front of the motor, monobloc type motors in the twelve-eighteen H. P. and eighteen-thirty H. P. models new automatic carburetor, with the flange attached directly on the cylinder jacket, and unusually high road clearance. Several large shipments of these cars, both completed and bare chassis, have been received, some with bodies built in the Renault plant, and others bv Felber of Paris.

Five stunning models of new and original design are being brought out by the National. The series is named the National Sextet, and all the models will be built on a chassis incorporating a six-cylinder motor of an improved overhead valve type. This motor seems to verify our remarks concerning the building of smaller motors of greater horse-power. The new National develops 71 horsepower at 2,600 revolutions, although its bore and stroke are only 3 1/2 by 5 1/4 This is a gain in power of 75 per cent over the previous Six of the same size built by the National Company. Many advanced mechanical features are incorporated in the new National car, and some of them, I think, are worthy of special notice here. For instance, the intake manifoldiscombined with the exhaust to present a hot spot of large area in the direct path of the incoming gases, and in addition the manifold and carburetor are hot water jacketed. For starting in cold weather, the carburetor, a Rayfield, is provided with an auxiliary electric heating device. All accessories are on one side of the engine, illuminated by a light on the reverse side of the dash. A 1 1/2 gallon emergency tank assures the driver that he will never run out of gasoline on the road. In appearance the car is refreshingly new. An apron over the gas tank at the rear conceals this usually unsightly object, while the entire car is built on lines which are a distinct departure from the bevel edge type which is so much in evidence of late.

There seems to be a noticeable return to the four-cylinder cars. One of the latest to give emphasis to this idea is the Nash Company, which is building a new factory in Milwaukee, which will be as large as the present Kenosha plant and which will be devoted entirely to the production of four-cylinder cars, while the Nash Sixes and trucks will continue to be built at Kenosha.

Those who expected this year to produce many radical revolutionary changes in motor car design and construction are doomed to disappointment, for the simple reason that such changes have been uncalled for. The motor car has reached an efficient state. All that remains now is to further refine it so as to bring it as near as is possible to perfection. When that is accomplished the millennium will have arrived, and we shall be using some other mode of transportation, probably wings.