W AR-T1ME experience of mass production of fabricated supplies, such as
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aircraft, is influencing the design and construction of passenger-vehicle bodywork. There is an increasing tendency to use jig-built standard components and to produce uniform designs. The most obvious application of this method of construction is to bodywork for export in knocked-down condition to save shipping space, freight charges and import duties, and to encourage secondary industries, employing British capital, in the lessdeveloped countries.
A leading builder of coach and bus bodies has carried this development to an advanced stage by producing a standard type of body made entirely of prefabricated parts, which can be shipped in a comparatively small space and easily erected by unskilled labour. Within the broad standard outline, the components permit variations of design to meet the individual requirements of operators.
Although this project has been carried out specifically for the export market, its potentialities in the home field are clear. Rapid production of bodywork made of standard components by semiskilled labour would bridge the existing gap in supplies and enable the public to be given the improved passenger-transport services for which it i clamouring. It would also assist in reducing costs—a matter that is likely to be even more important in the future than it has been in the past. Another advantage would lie in the absorption of young men whose vocational training was interrupted in its earliest stages by war service. They are, lamentably, many, and the problem of giving them a fresh start in life must worry all who feel a degree of responsibility for the unsettled state of world affairs.
Standardization obviously lends itself most readily to the construction of bodywork for service buses. There has always been a greater measure of individuality in the design of coach bodies, and some of the examples produced just before the war represented all that is good in industrial design. They were the work of artists and contributed greatly to the appeal of road transport to the travelling public. We would deprecate any tendency towards strict uniformity in the design of coach bodywork and the smothering of the operator's individuality as portrayed in his vehicles. That regret would be shared by the public