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John Furness
Page 75
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It is surprising how many people enter the road transport industry by chance. Like John Furness, since February this year, chief mechanical engineer at the DoE. A product of the former Merchant Venturers College in Bristol, Mr Furness gravitated into the aircraft industry becoming concerned with the development of the Bristol engine. In 1949 he renewed a past acquaintance with Lewis Morgan, then in charge of road vehicle mechanical engineering at the British Transport Commission, and accepted an invitation to join him at Marylebone Road. Later, he became assistant divisional engineer with the SE division of BRS.
When road transport was denationalized, he joined the then Ministry of Transport, and became interested in the legal as well as the technical side of vehicle construction. He was involved in redrafting and amending the C and U Regs as they applied both to commercial vehicles and psv as well as the private car.
He has also been concerned in drafting and administering the scheme for vehicle plating and testing.
Latterly John Furness has been engaged in establishing common standards for vehicle design in the European Economic Community. He says that there is more difference of definition and phraseology between mer.lbers than actual physical disagreement.
At the Show, he looked at cab design with particular reference to the layout of controls and the progress made in vehicle suspension as it relates to the transfer of weight to the road surface. He was also interested in bodywork and the method of securing it to the chassis as well as the increasing use of integral construction; and innovations which might unwittingly contravene or cause contravention of the C and U Regs.
John Furness is an expansive pipe smoker with a delightful sense of humour. He admits to being a do-ityourself man, a chess player and an enthusiastic caravanner — at 50 mph of course. Like so many caravanners, he is a family fam -with two teenage children.