Cars of the Future - Part 2

THE CHALLENGE OF AUTOMOBILE DESIGN IN THE 1970'S

"Automobiles in the 1970's will offer the customer a blend of beauty and function which far surpasses anything we have seen in the past."

In a speech entitled "The Challenge of Automobile Design in the 1970's," which was presented before the American Society of Body Engineers a few months ago in Detroit, C. M. MacKichan, executive in charge of Advanced Automotive Engineering International Design and Forward Planning for General Motors Styling, said: "With the character of the decade of the 1970's unfolding before our eyes at present, I have felt it necessary to title this discussion, 'The Challenge of Automobile Design in the 1970's,' for it will be indeed a challenge.

"The industry is being challenged from all sides in terms of ecological and political - social concerns. If exhaust emissions are not the subject, then passenger safety, traffic congestion or consumer satisfaction is. "But theoretical consideration of these 20th century problems is not enough. One can't be a theorist about safety, for example. We must test theories at the Proving Grounds. The air bag restraint system you hear so much about today may be obsolete tomorrow. . .. for technology is ever advancing and we learn more about our business each year.

"Let it be said that we're not ducking any of these problems as they relate to our task. The designer's job must be to relate these challenges to the design of a good looking car. It must be saleable; safe - yes, but not ugly, for good design and safety are certainly compatible.

"As designers, we know the automobile, its relation to the driver and how it fits into the transport system. We were applying the principles of functional design years before the government began to take an active interest in automobiles. The fact is, however, legislation is very much with us and is a continuing consideration in the process of automobile design.

"I realize I am not coining a phrase but automobile design for the 1970's is a whole new ballgame. We regard this situation as a tremendous challenge. We see the task of designing automobiles to meet the many detailed functional requirements as an opportunity to exercise our skills and ingenuity to an even greater degree during the coming decade. We want to go on record as saying that automobiles in the 1970's will offer the customer a blend of beauty and function which far surpasses anything we have seen in the past. We face this future with confidence and determination to do an even better job. for the automobile buyer than we have before.

"I would like to describe for you at this point some of the requirements that have been placed upon the functional aspects of the automobile in recent times and-some that we foresee being applied in the future. And then I would like to tell you about some of the sophisticated tools we are developing to enable us to do the job of automobile design more rapidly and more efficiently during the coming decade.

"As I noted earlier, automobile designers have always been concerned with the functional aspects of the automobile. We have to get our passengers in and out of them, have to seat them comfortably, and they have to be able to see out over the hood. We have been concerned with ramp and departure angles at the front and rear of the car, adequate lighting and many more functional considerations.  "It was at our urging -that cars were lowered, the passengers were located between the frame rails instead of above them, and that running boards were eliminated. The result was a lower, wider automobile with a lower center of gravity, better handling and, in all, a better product. Though our motivations were frequently aesthetic, often times a more functional product resulted. It's often been said that what looks better is indeed better.

"Since the coming of the United States Motor Vehicle Safety Standards in 1968 and our corporation's determination to equal or better these standards, the functional considerations of the automobile have been dissected, reconsidered, and restructured in a rather rigid form. Often, the requirements placed upon a particular component of the automobile conflict with desirable characteristics for another part of the automobile. It wouldn't serve the purpose of this discussion to detail every area in which the functional requirements of the automobile have been rigidly prescribed but it may be enlightening to concern ourselves with some of them at this time.

We at General Motors are subject to much more corporate review at the present time than we have been in the past. We have, first, the Forward Product Planning Group. If it approves our ideas, they are then subject to review by our Engineering Policy Group. Other committees within the corporation provide additional inputs. So the designer is now doing his job with a lot more people looking over his shoulder.

"Now that I have outlined the many external constraints with which the automobile designer has to work and which will become a way of life for him in the decade of the 70's, I would like to project some of the advanced tools that he will have at his command  'during this period of time.

"Throughout the 1960's we have developed a number of tools to make the designer's task easier and to shorten the length of time that is required to bring his idea to three-dimensional reality. "We have developed some rather sophisticated electronic measuring devices. Rather than take templates laboriously from a full-size clay model, we have developed an electronic surface recorder which scans the model and instantly converts the information to section drawings. We have also developed a point-taker which translates the surface of the automobile into digital information which is printed out and punched on numerical control tapes which then can be fed into an automatic drafting machine. This dramatically shortens the time required to go from model to drawing. But so far as the tools for the designer himself goes, advances have been relatively slight.

"We have adopted such modern conveniences as aerosol spray cans of paint, and the designer has learned to draw full-size on our blackboard drawings quite effectively by using black tape, which can be lifted, re-arranged, re- contoured very rapidly. But so far, he works by and large just about as he did for the past two decades. This, we believe, will change sometime during the 1970's. Some very useful devices are under development which use the outstanding speed and ability of the computer to handle huge quantities of information and further, capitalizes upon its ability to create pictures on a television screen with electronic impulses. We have, in its infancy, a new system which will provide a very sophisticated tool for the designer. This consists of what we like to call a 'dynamic sketch pad' and a 'light pen' with which the designer can draw. Through the use of this new tool, he is in complete control of the process and can call up information concerning his car design on a television-like graphic console before him At his request he can transpose it, move it, change it, or originate information which goes into the computer to add to the body of knowledge about this particular car design. This very complex but extremely useful system will enable him to take into consideration all of the many -engineering inputs and all of the restrictive constraints placed upon the design. Thus he cannot become confused or forget important criteria when he begins to lay out a new automobile. He can inspect the design at close range or examine what goes on underneath it by drawing on the huge 'data bank' of information which has been put into the computer by the car divisions concerning chassis, frame, suspension, and the like. For example, he can simulate the dynamic action of a door swing to determine exit and entry, panel interference and curb clearance and can vary the hinge points to achieve a satisfactory design.

"Today, when we initiate a new design, we lay out the car through a long, tedious process of pulling out drawings from the file, making tracings of localized areas, superimposing them and finally putting them all together to make a composition of a vehicle. We take suspension from one layout, engine and drive train from another layout; eventually we put in the seats, and the 'Oscar,' or human manikin, comes into play. We try to put all of the components into a compromise arrangement and every time we have to change something by trial and error, the task becomes time consuming and tedious. Simulation compresses the time required.

'”On the exterior of the automobile, one of the things requiring a major portion of our attention in the 1970's is. bumper protection. As our society has become more congested, its concern no longer lies with such matters as three-tone paint schemes and chromium decoration but rather in areas of consideration for the pocketbook. Bumper protection and its current emphasis is a reflection of this social concern. In addition, it has a relation to the safety aspects of the automobile for with increased bumper function we provide more protection for the lamps, the hood latches, the trunk latches and fuel fillers. In other words, we help preserve some of the safety characteristics of the car in event of minor accidents.

"All of this is well and good, but a little further consideration of the situation will show that there are some conflicts. The position of the lighting elements on the car is now rather strictly prescribed. The requirements for cooling the engine add their demands and increased bumper protection may find itself in conflict with these requirements.

"This now says to the designer, 'You must exercise your creativity within narrower limits. You have to have your park/signal lights outboard; your headlight must be 24 inches off the ground and must be visible from a prescribed cut-off angle. Your bumper protection must be extended over a vertical range and you'd better not forget to leave enough holes in the front of the car for cooling the engine.'. Here again, theory is insufficient and all of these functional considerations should be studied in Proving Grounds tests before being accepted as gospel. "The problem is no less complicated at the rear of the car. Increased bumper protection there involves moving the lights and license plates out of the bumper and doing something else with the gas filler.pipe, for the hole that it now occupies is a void in the armor at the back of the car. The relocation of the gas filler pipe is of considerable importance because we have to take into consideration fuel security; a front impact in an accident must not uncouple the tank and break it loose. Rear and side impacts must not squash the filler pipe or disconnect it with resultant gasoline spillage and fire.

"The increased congestion in the American scene inflicts its toll on the side of the automobile. When we decreased the amount of chromium trim on the car in an effort to make it appear cleaner and elegant, we quite frequently omitted the side strip with the result that we began to get increasing customer complaints. The anonymity of the car user in American cities, the increased shopping center parking, with its side-by-side accommodation for automobiles, have resulted in, a lot of minor damage to the sides of cars. The dings and dents suffered by the side of the car as another car door is opened into it are unsightly and sometimes expensive to repair. So we are faced with providing side protection as well, and most of our cars currently have this protection or offer it as an option. It is a challenge to our skill and ingenuity to incorporate more side protection into the cars and still retain the flexibility to provide product differentiation and attractive appearance for our various automobiles.

"As if this weren't enough we have the problem o over-the-hood vision. After the requirements for a band of protection, a band of cooling, and a band of lighting have been met, we still have to be able to see over the hood at some downward angle.

"Rearward vision is a function of both interior and exterior design and it, too, will play a great part in establishing design for the future. The concern for rearward visibility is strongly reflected in the models we are bringing out in the early 1970's. Vision and protection and the increased concern with which we view these functional aspects of the automobile is a challenge to us to develop new approaches to the exterior of the car. Their influence will allow us to offer the most dramatic appearance change in car design for the 1970's.

"Using his graphic console and light pen coupled to the computer, the designer's can very quickly arrange things to a more satisfactory configuration and he can took at many more possibilities in a given period of time. So we think that dynamic simulation is going to become the designer's primary toot in the initiation of an automobile. It eliminates the need to build models or prototypes at this early stage in the design and gives a greater degree of assurance that the design will effectively meet all requirements.

 "But we realize that the designer couldn't possibly do effective appearance design on a TV screen. What he can do is get the basic layout of the automobile organized in this graphic console and then request that a full-size drawing be made to serve as an underlay for his full-size blackboard drawing. Now the traditional process begins and he works over the blackboard drawing until he arrives at what he feels is a desirable solution to its appearance. Then the blackboard drawing can be returned to the drawing machine, the function of which can be reversed to become a scanner, or line-follower. The information which the designer has generated then goes back into the computer.

"With the updated mathematical model in the computer, the designer can now see a perspective representation of the lines he has drawn on the blackboard. He can see how the design fits the various constraints he's had and he should be in a better position to determine whether or not it should be further developed in a full size clay model,

"This system, which is called CADANCE, an acronym for Computer Aided Design and Numerical Control Effort, is under development and has been demonstrated to be quite workable. We are in the process of accruing a huge data bank of information to make this possible and at the same time we are designing the system so that the designer himself need bring to it no more knowledge or skills than he already has developed. In other words, the machine will be as easy to use as dialing a telephone is today.

"The primary utilization of such a system as CADANCE is to reduce the time interval between statement of design and its execution. The graphic console and the computer will team up to bring the designer a whole new dimension in the amount of information that he needs to digest or examine and reject possibly. All of the safety parameters, all of the protection constraints could be shown to him at the time that he initiates his design. And just as we have in the past considered the use of our human manikins as fundamental to the design process, these new criteria will become fundamental. We expect the CADANCE program to become functioning on a practical basis within the next several years.

"At this point I want to re-emphasize that we do not foresee that the computer in any way will replace the designer. There can be no effective substitute for his creativity and judgement. The use of this extremely valuable system will put a very sophisticated tool in the hands of the- designer, one which will extend his capability and enable him to work faster and more accurately, without retracing his steps.

"So far we have been talking about a direct aid to the designer in the, process he employs for the development of his creativity. Now we should go on and consider some of the equally sophisticated tools which will reduce the time required to bring a design to fruition, or enable the design management to look at and evaluate more proposals than is now possible.

"Our clay modelers are trained artists, most of whom hold fine arts degrees. At the present time they must work at some rather dull, repetitive tasks in our process. Once a design of a full-scale model has been completed on one side, it must be reproduced on the opposite side so the design may be properly evaluated. This tying up of the time and energy of truly creative people in the clay modeling field can be reduced by machine reproduction of a full-size model from numerical control data either generated in the computer or taken from the finished side of the model. We believe it is quite possible and will be feasible within the coming decade to maintain a master model at some place other than the creative studio, which will represent accurately both sides of a clay model which has been executed by creative people. This 'model in itself will likely not be made of clay and it will be almost entirely generated by a machine, It will, of course, require hand finishing to bring it to the state of perfection necessary for proper evaluation. This will enable design managers to bring corporate management in for review of a project without interrupting normal activities in a creative studio. There is no time schedule presently envisioned for this type of system, but the technology exists and it appears to be reasonably feasible.

"Beyond this, thinking even farther in the future, is the possibility that full-size, three-dimensional images of a car design may be generated electronically. While this sounds like something from science fiction, the technology exists today on a smaller scale. So it seems entirely possible that some time in the late 1970's, design managers may be able to look at what the engineers call a 'holographic' image in three-dimension of a full-size automobile design before deciding if it should be executed in a three-dimensional solid model.

"These very advanced projections for future tools which will enable the designer to go about his tasks rapidly and efficiently, may seem to be 'way out' but please recall that at the beginning of the 1960's we had not put a man in space, and before the close of the past decade men walked upon the surface of the moon. The things which I have just described are no where near so complicated as the task of putting a man on the moon. Sophisticated, yes, but tools that we will come to regard as indispensable before this decade is past.

"Our response to the challenges and opportunities of the 1970's can result in dramatic changes to the automobile. However, we are still in an evolutionary business and we must first develop designs, assess the results and then move progressively to greater achievements.

"It is apparent that the role of the designer is expanding, not contracting as he relates to the increasing concerns of society. The complexity of his task grows as the inter- disciplinary nature of all human efforts becomes the natural way of life. The designer is no less of an artist, but the exercise of his art becomes more demanding. He alone is at ease with the emotional aspects of automobile design and alone can ensure the aesthetic nuances that constitute attractiveness in a product, establish its visual character and express its function.

"The designer faces a new and exciting future in our ever-changing society. Just as artists down through the centuries have done, the automobile designer will rise to the challenges posed by society and technology and will make an ever-increasing contribution to the quality of the civilization he serves,"

WHERE DOES THE AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEER GO FROM HERE?

"It is my contention that the economic, political and social effects of the automobile have been so profound that, increasingly, the automobile will be shaped by and, to some extent, controlled by the very forces it has created. "Never in the long history of the automobile have automotive stylists -and engineers faced a more serious challenge than they must meet in this decade. Never before have they been under such pressure from the public and the government. What they do now will have tremendous impact on the entire world in the future.

Although the excerpts that follow were from a speech delivered five years ago before the Detroit section of the Society. of Automotive Engineers, it is obvious that they are even more timely today. The speaker was H. E. Chesebrough, then vice-president of Product Planning and Development for Chrysler Corporation, now managing director of Chrysler Espana, South America, and a Chrysler vice-president. Said Chesebrough:

"In looking at the; future, I want to look with you at a facet of it that we don't ordinarily think about: The environment that we automobile engineers will find ourselves in, and the sociological pressures we will be subjected to. We, as automotive engineers, need to take an objective look at our role in society and what is expected of us. We need to understand the pressures that will be applied to us and how best to turn those pressures into progress.

In some measure, our success in the past has generated our problems for the future. We have solved some fantastic mechanical problems and at times, when all of the factors fitted together, with amazing speed and apparent ease that have concealed the real effort that went into the accomplishment. We have reduced the extraordinary to the commonplace. We have generated an environment wherein superlative performance is expected all the time.

"Our progress in making available low cost - and economical to operate vehicles to give freedom of movement to man and his goods has been so rapid that our society has been unable to keep pace in such areas as user regulation, traffic control and highway systems to permit the vehicles to properly accomplish their intended purpose.

The result has been for the problems to develop out of proper context and have them turned back to the automotive engineer for solution. He is being told: "You created this machine which, in turn, has created all sorts of problems. You find solutions to these problems."

"These pressures on the automobile engineer will increase in the future because, just as the automobile has created and supported a new environment - a better way of life - for millions of people in all parts of the world, this rapidly changing environment will continue to have its effects on the automobile, This interrelatedness cannot be over-emphasized. It is my contention that the economic, political and social effects of the automobile have been so profound that, increasingly, the automobile will be shaped by and, to some extent, controlled by the very forces it has created.

"It will be necessary for automobile engineers to be even more alert to these changing forces than they have been in the past. The automobile will increasingly become one element in an integrated transportation system and, as such, the design parameters may be materially modified. The configuration, of the vehicle, its propulsion system, its carrying capacity, could be all affected. The change will not be abrupt, but it will be inevitable because the pressures generated by rapidly increasing populations of, people and vehicles will, in turn, generate pressures aimed at further regulating the design and use of automobiles.

"The forces which will help mold the automobile will come from all over the world. Perhaps the key words which best define them are 'more and better.' The demand will be for more automobiles, more types of automobiles, better performance -- in the broad definition of performance - better quality, more reliability, more safety, more comfort, more convenience, more and better highways, better traffic controls, more driver education, more of everything and everything better.

"The variety and strength of these pressures for progress are the best indicators of the vitality of this industry and these 'more and better' demands should be a source of great satisfaction to automotive engineers. They will also keep us from becoming complacent. "There is one potential danger in the way some of these demands are developing, however. They are not the usual demands of the marketplace for improved performance or added value. They are, instead, demands by third parties for added features intended to solve problems related to the use of vehicles. I am referring, of course, to the present interest in adding items to every automobile for the purpose of contributing to safety, or for eliminating an air pollution problem that may not even exist in many communities, or may not be primarily the fault of cars in areas where air pollution is present.

"The danger is that the time interval allowed for incorporation of some of these proposed devices may be too brief to allow thorough evaluation of their merit and development of their details.

"Under such pressure, we could well find ourselves compelled to incorporate at considerable expense to our customers, some item of little value or no value or, at the worst, some item that was actually detrimental to the cause of safety. We are currently under this kind of pressure, and we'll live through it as we have through others in the past, but the lesson for the future is that this type of situation is not transient. It will be with us more and more. "We must learn to do a better job of communicating the reasons why some proposals lack merit or cannot immediately be accomplished because technical problems have not yet been solved. At the same time, we must continue to demonstrate an open-minded attitude. We must continue to welcome suggestions from all sources that will help us improve our vehicles. We must continue to recognize that we hold no monopoly on ideas. And, we must continue to encourage individuals and organizations to assume leadership by equipping their cars with proven safety items.

"In addition, it will behoove us in the future to think of our work as encompassing sociological problems generated by the existence and operation of vehicles, and to try to find mechanical solutions to minimize their impact. To the best of our ability, we should try to foresee these environmental forces and generate the basic research in advance of the pressure for action so that proposed solutions can be appraised on facts and not on theory.

"Another environmental force which is exerting pressure on automotive engineers is the rapidly accelerating tempo of change made possible by technological advances in many different fields of endeavor. We must be alert to these new techniques so that we can explore them in depth to find possible applications to the design, evaluation, manufacture, and use of motor vehicles. By utilizing new technology, we will 'be expanding our capabilities for creating new and improved products and methods.

"An environment characterized by rapid changes brought about by new scientific knowledge, and in which sociological problems are intensified by the accelerating tempo of change, requires a highly educated citizenry to cope with life in general. More to the point, such an environment - with its emphasis on transportation - makes it mandatory for continuing engineering education to be the nucleus, for the planned program for growth of automotive engineers throughout their working careers. Many of us are using methods and instruments which were never even dreamed of when we were in college, or when we began practicing our profession. And, at the rate we are going, even these techniques will be obsolete tomorrow. It is necessary, therefore, that more automotive engineers must step up to their responsibilities by recognizing their continuing obligation to take refresher courses to keep abreast of the latest developments in science and engineering. We all will be hearing more about continuing engineering education in the coming years."

Coming Soon: Part #3  Flying Cars – One in Your Future? Fly a Detroit Production Car of your own?