THE SAFE ROAD AHEAD

[Music] watch this next shot closely and you'll see what I mean about torsion bar suspension notice there's no slide nor sway in the turn even at this blistering speed perfect control all Astana's at Indianapolis since 1953 have been equipped with some type of torsion bar suspension that's about all on this rail you got room for another customer hi Tom turn on the lights come on in this is Helen how do you do how do you do and Carl Carl mr. mrs. Bowman I'm very glad Mary I'm sure this is Tom Taylor another automobile bug like me so Harvey's found a new audience for his home movies he has a wonderful collection we were enjoying every minute of it all I did was mention this new torsion suspension have heard so much about man I sure pulled the trigger I didn't know the gun was loaded you really put your foot in it now I'm just an amateur Tom's are not party on the subject he's one of the automotive engineers who developed and perfected the first torsion bar suspension on a passenger car in this country well I don't get the point of this torsion bar gadget I don't want to go racing around corners at 90 miles an hour I want a car this comfortable and safe and reliable a big roomy car I can relax in with a powerful engine and good brakes so where did this torsion bar business fit in I was merely showing that the races have proved that torsion bar suspension is the best possible control of a car I know what Helens driving at and she's right she'd probably have gotten your point if you'd started way back at the beginning I guess you're right at that go ahead you tell us what you know the story as well as I do Harvey cars have always been your hobby but they've been your bread and butter for a good many years why you're part of a story hey fellas let's quit passing the puck yes you said it started way back what did you mean well a moment ago you said you wanted comfort in your car what we in the automobile industry call a smooth soft ride look over here these old beauties were some of the best of their time but they rolled like buckboards jar the living daylights out of their passengers so from the very beginning automotive research and engineering faced the problem of developing a softer ride they used buggy springs and wagon springs crosswise of the chassis and lengthwise of it as early as 1910 our company installed shock absorbers as standard equipment on this model and of course each year cars were being improved to provide more power and performance but practically everything that made the ride softer decreased the load carrying capacity and increased the car's tendency to pitch and bottom and the faster a car could go the more hazardous the soft ride became by the 1930s just about when I started with the company we had engineered and developed a manual ride control so the driver could adjust the ride to the road and the rate of travel the need for this compromise indicates the dilemma automotive engineers faced soft ride versus control in other words what price comfort to get the soft easy ride the customers demanded they had to compromise safety stability and control well I don't see where all this is leading my car seems to ride quite comfortably and I never have any feeling that it's out of control in a sense you're right especially in good driving conditions on smooth roads with gentle curves my point is from about the mid 30s until a few years ago automotive engineers fought the Battle of comfort versus control year after year inevitably of course they arrived at some fair compromises but consider the disadvantages of conventional suspension that still existed in even the finest cars up to a couple of years ago what happens when you fill the back seat with passengers and the trunk with luggage why the back end sinks down and the front end comes up right this change is the steering alignment and decreases the stability of the car furthermore at night they make your headlights right so high they not for you and they blind the oncoming traffic and when you have to accelerate fast the same thing happens front end up back end down let's say you're going up and over a railroad grade crossing the back end pitches up then slams down and hits bottom or you come to a dip in the road the back end hits bottom then pitches up and out you know one time I threw the children the dog and some packages right off the back seat on the floor just that way when you go around the corner even at moderate speed the front end dips and the car tends to roll whenever your car's weight shifts off balance in any direction you're losing control when you have to make a hard stop what happens the car pitches forward of course and if you're on slippery pavement well and obviously as we increase horsepower and speed these control factors become even more critical and no matter what they do to improve the conventional types of suspension in which the front wheels and rear wheels are independent of each other these things we've been talking about can't be overcome here's why when you hit a bump in the road a chain of four reactions takes place the front wheels go up then come down then the back wheels go up and come down at normal Road speeds the front end is still dropping as the rear end is rising this throws the back end higher and of course it comes down harder hitting bottom frequently so where does this new torsion bar suspension idea fit into the picture I'm getting to that that's where Tom here and the men working with them in research and engineering school the rest of the automobile industry scores of our engineers worked on it don't forget we had the finest equipment facilities and technicians to work with and a tradition of leadership in research and engineering that dates back to the early part of the century we reason this way further attempts to reconcile the Comfort versus control by merely improving conventional suspension systems could result only in minor improvements but if we can employ an entirely new suspension principle that would give a soft ride and still keep the control already obtained in the racecars well we could have our cake and eat it too and that's just what they did what did they do maybe I can show you Harvey how are you coming with that scale model chassis you were building for me just about done with it needs some touching up yet man you've done a beautiful job Harvey that's marvelous it really is beautiful this shows the perfected torsion level suspension system these long white rods are the main torsion bars where the spring with the two main torsion bars are the springs I hope you'll pardon my feminine mind but before we go any farther just what is a torsion bar well torsion means twist a torsion bar is a rod of spring steel that will twist when loaded then untwist or spring back to its original condition why not love it well I see what you mean the spring is in the twist or the torsion of the bar right and here's the key to the system on each side the front wheel and the rear wheel are linked together by a main torsion bar so that they work together as a team with this system when a front wheel goes up or down this front linkage twists or loads the front end of the torsion bar one way or the other and when a rear wheel goes up or down this linkage twists or loads the rear end of the torsion bar one way or the other of course when either end of the bar is loaded it twists the other end and operates the linkage there so the front and rear wheel work together simultaneously when the front for you hits a bump it loads the main torsion bar which instantly transmits an equal loading to the rear wheel as the front wheel comes down again it twists the main to shinb are in the opposite direction causing an instant and equal reaction at the rear as the rear wheel goes over the same bump it twists the bar first one way than the other causing an equal and simultaneous loading of the front wheel consequently in a car equipped with torsion bar suspension the car raises and lowers uniformly front and rear there's hardly any pitch and the car literally floats over bumps and holds when a car comes to a hard stop its weight shifts forward and the front end wants to dip down but remember the rear axle torque arms are instantly loaded the same way so the whole car squats down with very little pitch on the other hand when accelerating away from a stop which tends to lower the rear and raise the front the rear axle torque reaction tends to raise the rear end of the car to keep it level what keeps the car level when taking a corner it's because we use the Force which makes an ordinary car sway to actually stiffen the spring action of our torsion bar you see this torsion bar gives us the softest spring action when it's full length is used to take the shock of a bump the bump loads only one end of the bar at a time but when turning a corner the bar is loaded from both ends at the same time front and rear wheel so only one half of its length acts like a spring for each wheel this momentary stiffening of the spring action is what keeps the car level on corners another thing this new torsion bar suspension system automatically levels the car when the load is changed that is when more passengers or baggage are added these two short torsion bars and this electric motor actually do the leveling when the rear end of the car is loaded or unloaded the levelizer mechanism starts automatically a built in time delay keeps it from working until it knows that this load change is not just another bump after several seconds the mechanism levels the car the load levelizer automatically keeps the car within 5/8 inch of at all times the best way to appreciate the sure-footed control of this new torsion level ride is to see it in action compare it with a car that has no torsion bar suspension or low-level acid a car we thought was tops only a couple of years ago [Music] with our torsion level ride as we call it we can have both comfort and control we can have our cake and eat it too yes I see what you mean all right you must have a perfectly fascinating job to design and develop things like this it never gets monotonous that's for sure there's the constant challenge to make one new improvement on top of another for instance the elimination of the shift lever from transmission systems Oh what how can you drive without it up until recently even the so-called automatic transmissions have not been completely automatic in this day and age a truly automatic transmission system should respond to an electronic control at the touch of a fingertip it should be as simple and easy to operate as push-button radios and home appliances so our engineers have designed and developed an automatic push-button selector that controls our automatic transmission by an electronic device as easy as turning on the light it gives you instantaneous drive range selection at the touch of a finger touch the button and away you go truly automatic motoring what a wonderful convenient real touch and go driving [Music] there's nothing like it put some exciting new sensation in driving like taking off on a trip to the moon what happens if you accidentally push the wrong button it's foolproof an automatic safety control built right into the electronic selector cancels your mistake have you figured out how to eliminate the driver yet sometimes solving one problem gives us the answer to another for instance drivers like the ease and convenience of an automatic transmission but they also want the gas mileage that overdrive gives so one of the greatest improvements we could make would be to build the economy of overdrive into our automatic transmission well I'll come that's never been done before because the combination is mighty hard to do to achieve the economy of a slower operating engine at a given car speed it required three elements in the right combination we had to have an ideal engine transmission rear axle combination a numerically low ratio that call for exceptionally high torque in the engine fortunately our engine designers were johnny-on-the-spot with the answer their problem had been to develop and build the most powerful engine with the highest torque ever delivered at the rear wheel and a passenger car as a result we got the ideal power ratio we need for overdrive economy in an automatic transmission you have to see this new combination on the proving grounds to appreciate the results it achieved it provides a blistering get away from the stands too it has tremendous reserve torque for climbing steep grades and the new economy of overdrive in our automatic transmission plus our push-button controls or an engineer's dream come true so you see we were able to improve our automatic transmission and rear axle ratio the bill overdrive economy into them by building an engine that delivers maximum torque efficiency and fuel economy boy that sounds like a wonderful combination here's another spot where there was room for improvement the conventional differential why well if you've ever been caught in soft sand or mud you'll know what I mean the one rear wheel that's in the hole just spins and digs itself in deeper while the other rear wheel stands idle and you're stuck this is the path of the power through the old differential following the line of least resistance it always went to the spinning wheel that has no traction now to overcome this our engineers succeeded in designing a simple method of transferring the power through a new kind of differential through the wheel that's on firm ground and has traction as a result the car with a new twin traction differential has less of a tendency to dig itself into sand or mud but in case your car should be driven into a hole or a deep rut where the traction is poor the moment one rear wheel begins to lose traction by spinning twin traction instantly transfers the power to the other wheel and out you go on rough washboard roads where sometimes the rear wheel bounces and spins when power is applied this new instantaneous power transfer from the bouncing wheel to the wheel it has good traction avoid that chattering spin it makes a smoother and safer turn on rough or slippery pavements and on winter ice where the old differential would spin one wheel helplessly while the cars standstill now with twin traction you not only move off the ice easily you have enough power and enough traction to pull five cars off the ice this is the first great improvement in rear axle design since we introduced the hypoid gear rear axle in the early 20s what else have you up your sleeves oh we're working on all kinds of developments we can't even talk about yet you see an automotive research and engineering many of us are planning as much as five to ten years ahead we've gotta get going I promise Beverly and Jean we'd beat him at the club just about now give me just a couple of moments to fix my powder settle down boys will be a while yet but no point in taking both cars we're all coming back here afterward which one shall it be let's take this one okay we'll take your car leave mine here who's going to drive you who already decided that haven't you say Harv lets you and I sit in the back for a change just to see how it feels okay Barbie [Music] [Applause] [Applause] oh what a wonderful experience hey mister you want to see something really terrific watch [Music] Oh about that huh what will they think of next [Music] [Applause]