Germany Develops Novel Designs
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ATHOUGH the Britishbuilt commercial vehicle has achieved a remarkable and world-wide reputation for its efficiency, long life and ease of maintenance, our designers must not rest on their laurels, for there are signs of more intensive competition from the Continent.
On many occasions during the past few years we have emphasized the need for constructing special units and so positioning them that the ratio of load space to the total area occupied by the vehicle will be increased.
Much has certainly been done with forward control and placing the front axle farther back to give better manceuvrability, but in only one or two instances has any serious attempt been made to depart from the conventional arrangement, in which a vertical engine is situated at the forward end of the vehicle. A few virile and progressive technical men in this country have done their best to persuade our makers to depart from current design, but with little success; in fact, with one notable exception, the initiative has been taken by officials of prominent busoperating concerns.
More in this direction has been achieved in the United States, and the success attained there might well have provoked more enthusiasm here.
Now German makers have taken the lead in originality—and this .without going to unpractical extremes, as can clearly be seen by studying the designs of vehicles illustrated elsewhere in this issue. History is repeating itself. Some of the first engines developed were of the horizontal type, which lends itself admirably to accessibility and consequent ease of maintenance.
Our stringent regulations render loading-space conservation of even greater importance than is the case in many places abroad, where wider and longer vehicles are permitted. Consequently, if the new types be considered necessary there, they should be even more so in Britain.
Our technologists must also see that they are not left behind in the race for improvements in other directions. Germany is now said to have solved the problem of obtaining a home-produced fuel in sufficient quantities to render the motor vehicle independent of external supplies, and is officially stated to have developed a synthetic rubber which is actually better than the natural prod-Lid, although its cost may be higher.