BEAUTY AND THE BONNET.
Page 9
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By the Inspector.
WHEN ONE COMES to think of it-, there are very few industrial products that advertise themselves so much—and that means so well —as does the motor vehicle. I am one of those people who hold that all advertisement is, good—that there is no such thing as bad advertisement. An 'advertisement that does not attract attention is not an advertisement—it is the attempted use of a poor opportunity, or it may be a good opportunity poorly used. If an advertisement, of whatever nature, attracts attention to a poor article, to a poor performance, even then it is good in the end, for that way lies improvement or extinction.
Automobile Self-advertisement.
Now, the motor-vehicle enjoys the exceptional advantage of presenting in itself a perambulating means of publicity. What other product is there which, in the course of its ordinary employment, exploits the streets and highways so effectively as " publicity space" in its own behalf 7 Typewriters, toffee, shirts and socks, soap, furniture, cigarettes and bacon, none of these things in their purchasers? hands is capable of such inherent -advantage to its producer. There is no advertisement for the motor vehicle like the vehicle on the streets. Similarly the intense light of publicity blazes on the machine broken down by the wayside, and this, toe, in its way, is beneficial as being an evil to he shunned at all costs-by the maker—to render the life of all chief draughtsmen. uneasy.
What Looks Right is Right.
It therefore behoves the manufacturer to consider, when producing new designs, the desirability of rendering his -ehicle distinctive from. the point of -view of the public, quite apart from any efforts he may expend to please the sesthetic eye of the purchaser. There is no reason for such efforts, to tend, towards ' eccentricity or to depart from accepted practice. A thoroughly skilful designer, however, will know exactly how to combine. the last word in utility with an appearance that will indicate tone—that will strike the right note. There is a tremendous lot to be said for the wise dictum of a famous and highly technical engineering designer—" If to the skilled eye 'a thing looks right, it is right." .
_Fashionablc Bonnets.
On a motor vehicle no part of the, modern chassis lends itself so much to distinctive design as the bonnet. Few makers can ensure. uniformity of taste with regard to the coachwork which may eventually find a place on their chassis. So that, apart from general considerations of overall length, height of frame, size of wheels and so on, the note of a chassis is generally settled by the size and shape of its bonnet, now that it is no longer; fashionable. to tuck the engine away on the back frame member or to put it under the tonneaat.
A Note of Distinction.
The bonnet it is which catches the eye of the man in the street in ninety-nine cases Out of a hundred— unless he be in the police force and then, of course, be is only interested in the tail fittings. Lots of ingenuity is expended on radiator shape and much that is achieved is sihtly. But, far less skill is Shown in securing prc■portonate design of the bonnet proper. Many a good scheme starts off well with a radiator of exemplary contour, only to be condemned to nonentity by too fat, too high, too long, too low, or too sloping a bonnet line. There are some bonnets which please the eye immensely ; there are others which irritate—to mention them would be uncivil A distinctive bonnet goes a very long way towards creating a favourable first impression of a machine and by " i st inct iv e " I -would imply "distinguished," or, better still, as in French, with a shade finer distinction, " distingue."
Bonnetless !
Frankly, I hate the look of a bonnetless electric, and the so-called overtype petrol wagon impresses me unhappily aa does a, hump-backed human. Lanchester tried hard and in the end gave it up. Austin in his horizontal days used a comely bonnet, though there was nothing underneath it. The electric with its underhung surplua hugging the ground and its effort to appear bonneted with some contortion of a dashboard erected in front is too " horseless " for my eye. I know it cannot be helped very easily, but that does not make it please me. Was anything more clumsy looking than the earlier Clarkson steam bus with the driver on top of the boiler? There is only one thing worse and that is the chassis of the so-called cyclevar with six feet of tin-can bonnet covering a, singlecylinder four-inch engine.
, The Beauty of a Loco.
Bonnet design seems but a trifle in the search for efficiency, but it is more of a factor than is generally suspected. _ A handsome machine is a great sales propagandist. The driver and the owner take a pride in it and that is an invaluable asset to the manufacturer. Generally speaking, it is quite safe for the practised eye -to assume that, if the chassis as a whole looks all right, the detail of it will not call for much criticism in these days. That appearance counts for a great deal in such matters is evidenced by the almost invariably handsome outline of the British-built locomotive, which is the finest product of its kind in the world. German and French, aye and American locos, too, are, as often as not, sights for sore eyes, and, constructionally, they are inferior to our own handsome machines. There is no finer looking lorry than those built to the British W.D. subsidy specification and, curiously enough, there, even for war purposes, it was again largely a question of bonnet.
Buying the Ford a New One.
It is very unlikely, now that we have gone so fat, that we shall ever again dispense with the bonnet— even if, in days to come, it has to cover some prime mover radically different from our present engines. It has been suggested that, while retaining the present general position of the engine, radiator and so on, we should so construct the engine and its accessories that they would be weatherproof and so even more accessible. But such a departure would in effect present no advantage whatever, and the-disadvantages would include dirt and exposure to the weather, and in all probability in the effort to ensure weatherproofness, the magneto and other details would have to he more boxed in than ever. No! We must make the best of the bonnet—in more ways than one. As to how much respectability depends upon the bonnet is illustrated by the frantic efforts of Ford owners to buy them new ones1