Yesterday Ford took the wraps off the new FG Falcon.

New Australian developed and built cars come along only very rarely; Ford took the unusual step of releasing the car on a Sunday so that it could gain precious free airtime on the Sunday night TV news and in the Monday papers.

Away from my home base, I watched the Sunday night Channel Nine TV news in Adelaide with interest. How breathlessly and non-critically would they report the release of the new car?

The report was relatively short but it was what followed that had me gobsmacked.

Immediately after the report on the Falcon finished, the Nine news moved straight to a segment on the booming sales of the hybrid Toyota Prius, and the way in which some individuals are now converting their cars to battery electric power. The station interviewed several Sydney electric car enthusiasts and presented a glowing report on the cars. Phrases like ‘fuel economy’, ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ ‘oil consumption’ and ‘cost to run’ sprinkled the report.

The juxtaposition couldn’t have been a bigger slap in the face for Ford: even the dimmest viewer could not have missed the implicit comparison.

Today, on the Monday after the Falcon’s release, my emailed News.com.au update doesn’t have a single mention of the new Falcon.

Imagine how different the news reports would have been if Ford had released a car with breakthrough fuel economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions. A turbo diesel engine, or a downsized six cylinder turbocharged to gain efficiency.

Instead we have launch control – and even more power, torque and weight. Oh yes, and a fuel consumption improvement that is nominal to say the least.

It’s very hard to believe that the Falcon will not go the way of the Mitsubishi 380 – and for much the same reasons. High quality engineering directed in completely the wrong direction, aiming at a target that started to move a decade ago and has now gone…

(See also this blog)

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So Mitsubishi’s Adelaide car manufacturing plant is to close. The Mitsubishi 380, the large sedan released in 2005, has proved to be a flop.

Now, and over the next few months, there will be a prolonged post mortem, analysing the reasons why the car failed. Already, I’ve seen statements excusing Mitsubishi Motors Australia from culpability for its failure.

But to anyone not wearing rose-coloured glasses, manufacturing by Mitsubishi in Adelaide has been doomed since the very day of the 380’s release. The company – perhaps driven by their masters in Japan – made the atrocious decision to build and release a car that had no market.

And this is not a retrospective, wise after the event, summary.

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The (repeated) articles that we’ve recently run in AutoSpeed on power and torque are vital to understanding how to make your car go harder.

(The series can be found at Power vs Torque Part 1 –  and Power vs Torque Part 2)

And why is this understanding vital? Simply because people who use the terms ‘power’ and ‘torque’ often don’t seem to really understand what the words mean. The vital point to realise is that engine power is worked out by multiplying torque by revs.  And that’s the only way that power is worked out!

So an increase in torque at – say – 2500 rpm will mean a proportional increase in power also occurs at 2500 revs. It’s therefore just plain stupid to say “there wasn’t any change in the power curve but we got an increase in mid-range torque…” as some manufacturers of performance equipment state.

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Every month or so we get emails from a readers suggesting that we take a look at a new engine design that’s been developed by a tiny company or even a single person. The reader sends a URL and the website invariably lavishes praise on the new concept, describing how it develops a greater specific power / better specific fuel consumption / is cheaper to build / etc.

However, I very seldom go ahead with a  story – in fact, the only one I have ever done was this one. But if we’re interested in covering breakthrough automotive technology, why wouldn’t we want to run every such story we can find?

The short and brutal answer is that 99.9 per cent of these ‘breakthroughs’ are failures. To put that ratio another way, we could run 1000 stories and maybe only one of those would prove to be on something that is commercially and successfully built.

I am well aware that innovators and inventers will complain that a lack of media coverage is part of the very reason for that lack of success. And I accept that point. But in an automotive technology magazine, the very first requirement for exposure is that the engine (or whatever ‘breakthrough’ it is) be installed in a car that can be driven. That’s why we covered the Scotch Yoke engine – one of the test beds for the engine was a registered and driveable Subaru Liberty sedan. (In a different way, that’s why we’re also happy to cover home-built electric cars – they can be driven.)

While of course dyno testing of power, torque, emissions and fuel consumption are a vital part of a new engine development, the performance the design achieves in the real world seems fundamental to any assessment.

The other reason that very few stories of this type of appear is that when small companies have real breakthroughs, they tend to keep it very quiet. Instead of having media interviews, they’re dealing in closed boardrooms with large companies, selling intellectual property licensing.  One example is the Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (KDSS) – originally developed by Australian company Kinetic – fitted to the current Toyota Landcruiser.

On the other hand, major car and component supply companies often release detailed information on forthcoming designs. While some of these breakthroughs never go into production (or their long-term success is less than stellar) the ‘hit’ rate is not 1 in a 1000, but more like 900 in a 1000!

It would be a very brave or stupid person who suggested that major design breakthroughs are the province only of major companies, not individuals working on their own. However, in things automotive, I suggest that apparently groundbreaking new technology will be taken much more seriously if it can be convincingly demonstrated in a vehicle that journalists can drive and test.

Well, that applies for this journalist anyway!

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A while ago I attended an electric car show held in Sydney. I made the 2000-odd kilometre trip in my Peugeot 405 diesel, a car that, incidentally, gained high Fives (in litres/100km) for the trip.

At the show I briefly sampled three of the home-converted electric cars – a very interesting experience. And on the long drive home to the Gold Coast, I had plenty of time to reflect on these cars.

The electric cars I drove each retained the original gearbox: the electric motor was bolted up to the ‘box and the ratios could be selected by the driver. Typically, the cars were started off in second gear and then third and fourth and fifth gears were used as appropriate. (I used first gear off the line and felt an immediate gain in starting performance.)

But none of the cars I drove had performance that came close to conventional petrol engine (or even commercial hybrids). Even when the electric motor was rated at a higher power than the original engine, the massive weight of batteries substantially dulled the resulting power/weight ratio.

Putting in a more powerful electric motor (or running two electric motors) would of course help solve that, but at the expense of greater electrical power consumption that in turn would need either more batteries or result in a shorter range (and none of the ranges were very good to start with!). However, all the cars could easily exceed the 110 km/h open-road speed limit.

Clearly, what is needed is an electric motor that has only enough power to do the job – but no more.

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Imagine you were living in the late 1930s (and of course, a very small number of you may well have been!). Then, as now, cars had four wheels, a body, engine, suspension and brakes. But they often had something else as well – a chassis.

Nowadays, nearly all cars use monocoque construction, where the pressed steel body provides the required stiffness. The main exceptions are traditional off-road four-wheel drives and trucks and buses – these vehicles still largely use a separate chassis. A few bespoke cars also use non-monocoque construction; for example, a tubular space frame.

But even in the late 1930s, you could have seen plenty more designs that just a traditional chassis. Have a look at these – all are taken from The Mechanism of the Car, written by Arthur W Judge and published in 1939.

Firstly, we have monocoque (or unitary) construction. This Vauxhall retains a separate bolt-on chassis for the front suspension and engine mounts, an approach common in cars up to the 1970s.

But then we have the cast aluminium frame. What?! Yes, a car being sold in 1939 (the Hotchkiss Amilcar) used a frame formed from cast aluminium members bolted together.

Here’s how the cast alloy frame integrated itself into the car.

Then there was the tubular frame, as used by Austro-Daimler. The very large diameter central tube would have given both high bending strength and also resisted torsion.

And finally, we have a car that’s absolutely intriguing – and one I’d never heard of before. It’s simply listed as the ‘MG Racing Car’ and uses a backbone chassis formed from pressed, welded plate. The car also features double wishbone suspension front and rear – perhaps the first car to ever do so.

I think that these drawings are worth looking at closely (you can click on them to enlarge). In mechanical car design, there’s very little new under the sun…

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This is my last blog post for this year: new posts and AutoSpeed articles will both resume January 8.

So what have we got planned for 2008?

Firstly, the new editorial approach that we’ve taken in the last 12 months or so will be strengthened and consolidated. In short, that’s a move that is in keeping with the rapidly changing times. 

Consider these points:

• Countries are now seeking to isolate themselves from the volatile politics of world oil by embracing alternative automotive fuels like ethanol, CNG and LPG. Sovereign energy self-sufficiency is of greater political and strategic importance now that at any time since World War II.

• The increasingly solid evidence being presented by scientists for global warming is making a huge impact not only at the ballot box but also in big company boardrooms around the world. Decreasing energy consumption – and so fossil-fuelled CO2 emissions – is likely to become the watchword for all human activities, including transport.

• Tightening legal restrictions on driving fun are already all around us. Having a modified road car with enormous power is becoming an increasingly silly aim, suitable only for dyno boasting competitions. On the other hand, having a frugal, responsive, good handling and technically advanced car is as rewarding as it has ever been.

• The car manufacturing industry is in its time of greatest philosophical change since the 1930s. Hybrid petrol-electric cars are now being actively developed and/or marketed by every major car company in the world. That represents an incredible change in just the last 5 years. With the legislated clean-up that’s now also occurring with diesel engine emissions, it’s quite easy to envisage a situation where, world-wide, traditional petrol engine cars will be in the minority of new cars.

In the context of these points, to keep on running articles about 350kW supercharged V8 modified road cars and the like is not only short-sighted, it does you all a disservice.

(On a personal level, this is an almost exact re-run of what was happening when I first started automotive journalism. Then, about 15 years ago, engine management was being introduced on all new cars. And, with that development, oh boy, was the automotive world ever changing! But at the time, nearly every modified car magazine continued writing about engines with carbies and points. It took years before the modified car media embraced the changing technology. But anyone with half a brain could have seen the writing was on the wall for the old technology, and that encouraging readers to stick with outdated ideas was doing them no favours.)

So for AutoSpeed, huge, thirsty and enormously powerful modified engines are out – we won’t be covering them.

But articles on techniques that improve car and engine efficiency – aerodynamics, turbocharging, intercooling, intakes, exhausts, headwork, tyres, suspension and brakes – are right on the money. Especially if those techniques are talked about in the context of cars that are already highly efficient….

We’re also really excited about another development for the coming year. Why? Well, we’re going to be presenting stories on a whole bunch of new electronic modules dedicated to do-it-yourself car modification.

Long-time readers will be familiar with the electronic kits developed by me in conjunction with Silicon Chip magazine and sold by Jaycar Electronics, but the new modules will be better again. So how will they be better? In short:

• They won’t be kits but instead be fully built and tested circuit boards, ready to be connected and then put in a box or simply wrapped in heat-shrink and placed up under the dash.

• They will be able to directly drive big electrical loads like fuel pumps, solenoids, radiator fans and the like. Or, if required, they will be able to operate relays or switch LEDs or warning lights or buzzers.

• Taking into account their high functionality and fully built status, they’ll be very cheap.

• They’ll be small, near-impossible to kill and be very simple to wire into place and set up.

The brain behind the electronics is eLabtronics, the company with which we developed the Intelligent Intercooler Water Spray Controller some 8 years ago. That product, still available, combines intercooler temperature and engine load sensing with a predictive ability that allows the intercooler spray to actually come on before it is even needed!

This time we approached eLabtronics with a proposition that they’ve very happily taken up – to build a single electronics module that can be software developed to have a myriad of different functions. By standardising the hardware, eLabtronics can make the product in greater numbers, bringing down prices. And by using software reprogramming to produce different modules, the designs can still be fully optimised for their particular functions.

We doubt that there will be any kind of modified car anywhere that can’t make good use of one (or more) of these planned modules.

And finally, in 2008 we’ll be making some major changes to the website. We’ll be introducing much greater facility for reader interaction (including with other readers); opening-up AutoSpeed to easy access by far more people; enabling easier content searching and linking; adding some more features and generally streamlining the site for better use by you.

As we’re fast heading for our tenth anniversary, I want AutoSpeed to keep being innovative, occasionally provocative, relevant and useful.

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Years ago – say getting on for 15 or 20 years ago – people used to ask why I had a performance car.

“There’s no where you can drive fast,” they’d say, “so why bother?”

I’d enigmatically respond with something like: “Oh, there are still plenty of places left to drive fast.”

And, in those days, there were.

The Northern Territory had no open road speed limit, and while the other Australian states and territories had 110 km/h limits, the philosophy of enforcement was then completely different.

There were no speed cameras – all radars were hand-held and, a little later, mobile in-car. In most states, radar detectors were completely legal, and all police communications were unscrambled voice. Trucks didn’t have speed limiters and on the open road typically sat well over the speed limit. CB radios were constantly used by trucks to communicate the presence of police cars (“double bubbles”) and police motorcycles (“Evel Knievels”).

In my Commodore VL Turbo I ran a radar detector, CB radio and police scanning radio. And they weren’t there for looks.

My BMW 3.0si ran to an indicated 220 km/h, my Commodore Turbo to 210 km/h, my Liberty RS to 220 km/h (which seems slow but that’s what I remember), my Daihatsu Handi turbo to 180 km/h and my R32 GTR to 260 km/h. And none of these were figures I got from just reading a book…

Any tight, windy road was a challenge there to be taken: the chances of being caught were tiny. In addition, the speed limit for the stretch of road was seldom set on the basis of the corners, so it was common for a 100 km/h limit to be in place on a road that included corners with advisories down to 30 km/h.

In those days turn-in understeer at 150 km/h was a real consideration; lightness in the steering at over 200 km/h was a right pain in the butt, and anything less than 130 on the open road and you must have had Grandma on board. I remember I boiled the auto trans fluid in the Commodore when going for a top speed run – the car was slipping its clutch-packs and the fluid got so hot it came out of the breather onto the exhaust. A guy I know used to sit on 180 km/h on the open road, ear plugs firmly in place.

Without any doubt the roads today are much safer – I’m sure the enforcement of speed limits and low/zero blood alcohols have resulted in less fatalities and injuries.

But now there really aren’t any places to drive fast. These days, they literally put you in jail if you drive fast, and take away your car if you have a few quick traffic light races. I am not saying that’s bad; what I am saying is that the road use of a performance car is now so limited that I wonder at their purpose.

I live at the top of a steep and windy country road. There’s about 15 kilometres of it – and I know it far better than the back of my hand. I’ve at times driven it extremely quickly, but any time I have done so I’ve been risking my license – the speed limit is 60 km/h. At sixty I can go around every corner without slowing.

Apart from flicking through an urban roundabout quickly (so what…), there is nowhere – literally nowhere – that I can drive fast. And that’s living smack-bang in the middle of what many call the best drivers’ roads for hundreds of kilometres.

And is it any different for other people? I was in a workshop the other day and the proprietor told me how the Falcon XR6 Turbo out the front had 450kW at the wheels. Or was it 550? – I don’t know, I wasn’t really listening. The prop went on to say that it was a really hard car to dyno because of wheelspin. Apparently, on the road it wheelspins up to 4th.

Now, honestly, apart from dyno bragging rights, what is the point of having that much power in a road car? As I have implied, once upon a time it would have been really useful – 100 to 200 km/h in just a handful of seconds. But now, spinning wheels will cause a police booking, a quick traffic light race ditto, and exercising anything like the top-end potential would immediately result in jail time.

Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense for people to have cars so low in power that you can have fun at what can only be described as slow speeds? Or instead of spending money modifying an already powerful road car to make it even more powerful, invest in kart, budget open-wheeler or dedicated drag car?

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They’re rare but if you look long enough you’ll find some.

What I am referring to are books that show just mechanisms. These are the basic underpinnings of all machines, distilled down to their elements. Things like all the ways in that shafts can be joined; all the ratchet systems ever invented; all the ways in which variable ratio gears can be enacted; 2-link, 3-link, 4-link mechanisms; and so on.

One of the best on the topic is Mechanisms in Modern Engineering Design, a five-volume series written by I. I. Artobolevbsky and published by Mir Publishers of Moscow. Publication date was 1976, making it one of the few engineering books published in Soviet Union times that gained widespread popularity in the West. Well, ‘widespread popularity’ is of course a relative term – the books are still very rare.

I have the set, purchased on eBay at great expense.

The books have proved so useful – especially in a ‘food-for-thought’ way – that when I saw another, similar, book on eBay I bought it. And this one was quite cheap.

It’s called The Engineer’s Sketch Book and it’s by Thomas Walter Barber. Publication date is 1934. The subtitle gives you a feel for the contents: Mechanical movements, devices and details – with nearly 3000 designs and drawings classified and arranged for easy reference.

Chapter headings include everything from Ball and Socket Joints to Turbines, from Winding Apparatus to Mincing, from Ratchet and Pawl Motions to Springs. Like the Artobolevbsky volumes, it’s an absolute Godsend for someone groping their way towards the design of a mechanism required to achieve a particular outcome.

But what put a smile on my face was the Introduction to the second edition. Writes Mr Barber:

In view of the criticism of this work which has occasionally found expression by certain readers, who appear to have expected to find in it designs of Machines, Structures, etc., and complaints, based on the same misunderstanding, that the book is, consequently, not kept up to date, the Author has thought it desirable to append a few explanatory observations.

These impressions it may be stated arise from a complete misunderstanding of the intention of the Author and the purpose of the book.

This work is not a treatise on Design, nor a textbook on Mechanical Construction. Its object is to supply the designer with the basic elements of mechanical and structural composition, classified and displayed in such a way as to facilitate the selection of those details which may be most efficiently combined into an effective and harmonious whole.

And so on goes the author, obviously writing through gritted teeth! In fact, to avoid any more misunderstandings of his genuinely fabulous book, Mr Barber then takes the reader on a step by step detailed tour of the design of a reciprocating carriage, showing how each part of the design can be developed with reference to the different sections of his book.

If you like designing mechanical devices, keep an eye out for this type of book. But remember Mr Barber’s warning: they’re meant to show lots of different ideas, not do the full machine design for you!

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