MOTOR CAR BODY DESIGN This subject, which deals with aesthetic considerations in rela tion to motor car body design, is treated comprehensively below and also under a following section, United States.
In automobile design, the artistic or aesthetic side of the de signer's craft is subservient, i.e., there is no true place for decora tive art as such in the modern automobile. The body designer can only exercise his powers within well-defined limits ; he is bound by certain factors as to proportions, measurements, etc., with which few liberties can be taken. The designer's province as an artist is to give character to the ensemble and by well chosen lines and treatment to suggest such attributes as power, comfort and speed, and to emphasize and not to destroy the feeling of structural unity.
In the single brougham, or coupe, we require firstly a seat for two, carried on an axle by a pair of springs. The axle posi tion is determined by the need for bringing the springs beneath the seat part of the vehicle and not under the vehicle ; convenience of access demands this, the brougham is not a vehicle for the young and athletic and the access is one of the governing factors in design. Next we have to assign a position for the front axle; this, on the established system of horse-drawn vehicles, requires to be mounted on a perch bolt and turn-table with room to swing well over on the lock; thus, the position of the perch bolt, or pivot pin, in front of the body of the vehicle is determined. Also, in order not to require too high an arch over the wheel when on the lock, the front wheel is made of smaller diameter than the rear wheel, where no such conditions apply. Now, having drawn the position of the turn-table and the arch, we have ready-made the position for the driving seat; the footboard and dashboard follow as a necessary sequence. The vehicle is to be a closed vehicle which determines approximately the height and size of the body. The back panel, of course, is sloped to follow the general position of the passenger's back and the squab. The door position admits
of no alternative. Now the ingenuity of the engineer or con structor is needed. The vehicle has very little strength; if loaded it would collapse. To give the necessary strength a frame rein forced by steel members is provided under the door and continued from arch to dumb iron. It is here that the designer's art comes into play. Apart from his knowledge of construction, his role is to give unity and character to the design. There are no redundant lines or ornaments, the treatment is severe and is simplicity itself, but such simplicity was only achieved after centuries of experi ence. There is one point in particular which calls for attention, viz., the bringing forward of the line of the front door post to form, as it were, a "cusp" and so disguise what otherwise is liable to be unsightly, the junction of the visible part of the frame with the body proper.
When the automobile designer first endeavoured to design a coupe, instead of analyzing the origin of the horse-drawn coupe or brougham and learning its lesson, viz., that no lines or features of design which are foreign to the necessities of the case can live, he took the side of the horse-drawn coupe and, as it were, plastered it on to his chassis, or body drawing, just as we see sham columns plastered on to the walls of buildings in certain examples of bad architecture. The problem of the designer of that period was in not knowing what to do with his door post line when he had finished with it. The result of experience has since decided that door post lines and other vertical lines require to be eliminated or subordinated entirely to the lines denoting horizontal structure. This is one of the most important principles that has been established in the art of automobile body design: the dominance of the horizontal line. After the event it is easy to understand how inevitable this should be. The whole character of speed, which is the "breath of life" of the automobile, is con sistent with the horizontal line and the horizontal partitioning of the design. Vertical lines and vertical sub-divisions are lost and meaningless in rapid motion ; they belong to and are only con sistent with things stationary or slow moving. The horizontal line in itself suggests speed. The arrow, the javelin,—length in the direction of motion—give instantly the suggestion of speed.