Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-11-08
'EXACTING TESTS
MADE FOR NEW
OVERLAND 4
Overland Co. Made Tests For
Two Years Before Putting
New 4 on Market

The testing of motor cars, like the
building of motor cars, has under
gone marked advancement during
the last few years. New standards
have been created and new mechan-
ical testing devices have been per-
fected to keep pace with the devel-
opment of the automobile itself.
1t remained for the Willys Over
land Company, however, to supply
the supreme test to its latest model,
Overland 4, which has just been an
! nounced. This test, it is believed,
has established new standards OF
testing and refinement of details to
make a car practically perfect me-
chanically before it goes to an
owner.
The history of the development
building and testing of Overland 4,
which introduces the new three
point spring suspension, covers a
period of years. The car is the
product of a decade of progressive
engineering achievement toward tho
ideal lightweight car; of a years
intensive engineering experiment and
two years actual demonstration and
test in all kinds of weather and all
sorts of roads.
During the two years of test Over
land was given 250,000 miles of
actual road demonstration. That's
ten times around the world before
single car went on the market.
These tests were of great value to
the engineering and the production
departments of the WHY'S Overland
company and, finally, to the man
VINO buys the car. A staff of engi-
neers studied the car during those
100000 miles of test to determine
every refinement and improvement
that might be necessary to make the
car when 1t went on the market free
from service troubles and of as
sured economy in operation and per-
feet ease of-riding because of the
new three-point springs.
The value of 100000 miles of ex-
haustive testing may further be
judged from the comparison with
the usual custom of sending a new
car into the market after it has been
pounded on roads in some 25, 900 to
rs, 900 miles of demonstration. The
Overland 4, it is said, is the first
car that has gone on the market
with pedigree of perfect produc-
tion after two years of constant
testing.
The section of the country picked
for these tests was in natures lab
oratory of the Southwest-Colorad
New Mexico and Arizona There
nature seems unfinished, a rough,
rock-Strewn, tortured country. II
was there that the engineers decided
that the new three-point suspension
springs could be given a supreme
test of the uneXcelled ease of riding
which they have now introduced.
Accordingly, a fleet of Overland
As were sent into this section. A
Stan of engineers accompanied the
cars to watch every hour of per-
formance. In Colorado the cars were
set to work scaling mountain sides,
twisting and turning around the
hairpin turns of the precipitous cliff
and mountain sides and rolling over
the boulder-strewn roads. There
was plenty of mud-seas of it, thick
and sticky as glue, hub and run
ming board deep. In New Mexico
there were great stretches of deep,
shifting sand. which threaten to rack
and twist the frames of ordinary
motor cars. In Arizona there were
great stretches of plain, innumer-
able river streams to ford, worse
mud than ever before and stretches
of road that were so rough and tor
tuous that they resembled saw-tooth
blades of scraggy, sharp rocks. No
better testing ground can be found
than in the Rocky Mountains.
Over these roads Overland was
pushed to the utmost Days were
spent in mud, in streams. twisting
through rocky defiles, scaling boul-
der-sprinkled hill and mountain
sides. The drivers were amazed
night after night with their freedom
from fatigue because of the easy
riding of the cars due to the won
derful three-point spring suspension.
The cars were found in perfect me-
chanical condition after each ex-
animation by the engineers. The
three-point springs had saved the
cars, had given new ease and COM
fort to the drivers; the balanced light
construction had conquered the worst
of the roads: the power of the car
itself had pulled it out of road situa-
tons in which horses were found
helplessly mired and dozens of auto
mobiles were passed, sunk deep and
immovable.
While these tests were going on
other tests were being made in the
country within radius of 800 miles
of the factory.
The new three-point suspension
springs had done everything the en-
gineers had hoped for in saving the
car and introducing an almost un-
canny ease of driving; the all-steei
construction of the car gave II a
ruggedness unusual in any light car.
1t was in these tests that the Willys
Overland Company developed the
phrase which describes Overland 4,
because of its three-point springs,
as the most important Improvement
in motor car construction since pneu-
matte tires.