The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-11-09
Typifies Machine Age
BY DAVID DIETZ
Scripps- Howard Science Editor

NEW YORK, Nov. 9.-The 1886
automobile typifes the emergence
of America from the depression. In
its combination of spectacular beau
ty and technical excellence, it dis
plays the characteristics which will
be found increasingly in the
products of American industry dur
ing the coming year.
Both the beauty and the efficiency
Of the new automobiles grow out of
the same basic fact, namely that the
new cars have been designed from
the inside out rather than from the
outside in.
This was for me the outstanding
impression at the close of a day
spent in inspecting the new models
at the National Automobile Show
and at the auxiliary shows which
manufacturers have in the Hobbies
and bathrooms of hotels on Park
av and elsewhere.
Leaves Buggy Era
The automobile started as buggy
with the shafts for the horse taken
off the front and an engine con-
cealed somewhere under the drivers
seat. Until the 1885 automobile
show, held here last January, the
motor car was closer to that buggy
than it was to the potentialities
of the machine age.
The 1885 models left you with the
impression that the automobile was
finding itself, and the latest offer
lngS convince you that the auto
mobile has done so.
Fundamentally, the automobile is
a device for transmitting power
into motion.
With the 1885 model. one had the
feeling that the automobile was be-
ginning to look dynamic instead of
static. But one also had the feel
ing that the designers had placed
too much emphasis upon stream
lining. For important as streamlin-
ing is, it is more important in the
airplane than in the automobile.
Likewise, it also seemed that de-
signers had sometimes been a little
too enthusiastic in giving a fender
or a hood a new sweep. A pointed
hood which rode between tenders
that beloved away like the waves
before the prov of ship caught
your eye but also made you wonder
whether it was the best of engi-
neering.
Truer~ to Basic Principles
This year the designers have been
truer to the basic principles OF the
automobile itself. Staying within
the general plan of Streanlining
which so excellently typifies the
spirit of modernity, they have not
hesitated to modify it where the
basic nature of the automobile de-
mands such modification.
In designing the new cars, the en-
gineers have taken the fullest ad-
vantages of the new materials which
the research laboratories, running
full blast through the depression
years, have placed at their disposal.
The casual visitor is not likely to
appreciate that these new models
were made possible only by the de-
velopment of stainless steelS and
other steel alloys, aluminium alloys,
plating processes, plastlcs and new
finishing methods. Chemical re-
searches upon fuels have in1u-
enced engine design in ways which
finally find expression in the ap-
pearance of the car.
Compact and unified, with lights
and horns built into hoods and
tenders, with sleek noses that spell
power and speed as they point into
the wind, with shape of windows
and trim of chromium all carefully
calculated to accentuate the funda-
mental Soundness of design, the 1886
automobile symboliZes an America
that has found herself and started
to 60 places.