Glass Coachwork in Radio Vehicle
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A Unique Type of Body Construction Which Provides For 100 Per Cent. Visibility AWIRELESS broadcasting vehicle of rather special interest has just been built in Paris for the French Goodrich tyre company. The basis is a Hotchkiss, with bodywork by the well-known French coachbuilder, Henri Labourdette.
M. Labourdette has always been renowned for highly original ideas and his latest product certainly carries on this tradition. The Goodrich publicity department wanted a travelling wireless station to give out running commentaries while following the great cycle road races which arouse such fervid enthusiasm throughout France. and for such work a body giving the maximum amount of all-round vision is obviously desirable.
Now it happens that the Labourdette concern has specialized for some years past in a form of body construction which gives particularly good driving vision. This is known as the Labourdette " Vutotal " system and in it the windscreen alone supports the
a.130 forward roof-edge, no side pillars being used.
In the Goodrich Hotchkiss, M. Labourdette has extended this idea and carried it to such an extreme that nothing but glass holds the roof up. As this, with its load of huge loudspeakers, weighs a fraction over 6 cwt., it will be appreciated that this notion represents a fairly bold experiment, but the vehicle has proved a . complete success in practice.
Sheets of Securit toughened glass, 10 mm. thick, are employed and a close examination reveals that no opaque uprights of any kind—metal or otherwise—are used, The -vehicle has just come through a gruelling test in that important event, the Tour de France Cycliste, in which riders, in three weeks, cover 5,000 Idioms. in a circuit of the country which takes in the Alps and Pyrenees.
Two entirely independent wireless receiving and emitting sets are carried on the vehicle, and when at work it is assisted by a second machine with a single emitting and receiving set and by two motorcyclist " scouts " equipped with wireless telephones. The second car travels ahead of the racing men and reports back, whilst the motorcyclists dodge about along the column picking up news items.
With regard to this glass body construction, M. Labourdette informed our Paris correspondent that, rather to his surprise, production costs had worked out actually lower than for some of his more normal bodies inwhich special panel-beating is required.