Dashboard

Every time I open the WordPress site I get a dashboard that lets me control the weblog. Every time I get into my little Suzuki I sit behind a dashboard that lets me control the car. It is a comfortable place to be in both cases and I can see the wisdom in naming the set of electronic quizzes and sliders that we operate for sites and computers the same as the automobile – we are nearly all familiar with one somehow.

Well, leave the weblog and the computer aside and follow along to a couple of car shows as I look at the dashboards. I find them a fascinating insight into the minds of both the designers and of the society they serve.

The first dashboards literally dashed the mud aside as buggies and wagons followed horses. I’ll bet that the horses were not fooled – they could think of ways of spattering the people behind them anyway. But the dashboard of the wagon might only need to have a footrest, and no other controls. This leaked onto the first horseless carriages – they have few things happening in front there either, though they start to add pedals and switches to deal with braking and transmissions. Sometimes with the acceleration of the engine, though in many of the old cars this was still happening around the steering wheel.

Sometimes pipes and gauges were added to cope with fuels, or water, or oil. There might even be electrical gauges if the driver needed to know what was going to fail next…

Gradually the gauges took on more significance and prominence. People might not have needed to know how fast they were going early on because they were not going fast at all. When they sped up, someone wanted them to slow down, and quantified that – speed limits were evolved and drivers needed to know how quickly the vehicle was moving. The speedometer appeared. Followed by the speed trap and the fine.

Technical brother to the speedometer was the tachometer – how many revolutions per minute the engine was making. The driver could use the information to decide when to shift gears, if the screaming of the transmission or the passengers did not supply the signal. Old timers probably paid more attention to this one and regulated themselves in their district on hills and turns they knew by watching their revs.

People needed to know how much petrol or other fuel was in the tank and for a long time the only way they could determine this was a dipstick in the tank. That or a glass gauge with a tube in it somewhere near the tank. Or sticking their tongue in the tank. It was a long time before a reliable petrol gauge appeared on the dashboard…and I am waiting any week for one to show on mine…A guess is as good as a mile in many cases and that is how far you’ll be walking when you ignore the little floppy needle.

Oil? All engines and many navies needed it, but the original measure was a dipstick on the crankcase for when you had it and a grinding clank when you didn’t. The idea of putting an oil gauge on the dash to worry the driver came along pretty quickly but it was generally done by means of a tube from where the oil pressure was to the gauge in the dash where the needle swung over. The inevitable vibration and fatigue fracture would send the hot oil somewhere unpleasant. It was quite a while before they thought of a sensor and electrical reporter for this.

Electricity, coming or going, is invisible. You only ever hear it when you are holding a spark plug lead and the block and some comedian cranks the engine over. Then it makes a noise like bad words. For some time the designers did not really know what to measure as far as electricity went and there were few sensible gauges. Eventually they settled on a little bobbing needle that went one way when you were using it up and the other way when you were making more. You could even measure the battery to see how much electricity was in there but it was always a blasted lie.

Most other measurements and reports were only commentary. Various makers decide to tell you or not, depending upon the market and whether they thought you wanted to know or would understand the message.

Will post later…must dash…

 

 

I have An Idea, Pierre…

I have an idea, Pierre, pass the bottle. We will work through lunch. After all, here at the Citroën works we have a 4-hour lunch and one does get thirsty? Have we any more brandy?

See, my idea is that we make a combination of the most sensible luggage carrying space in the world with the most impractical and quirky motor vehicle and promote it as a national statement of elegance. No, stop laughing, Pierre – you are attracting unwanted attention….

You observe that we take the shape of a simple box with a rounded top, make it of sturdy steel that has been fluted for longitudinal strength, and put some practical windows on the sides and rear. The rear door should be split, capable of opening fully on a simple set of hinges, and have a railing to assist with putting packages in. The interior of the box should be square and have a practical floor. Thus we make all merchants, farmers, and delivery couriers into happy people – surely a blessed and rewarding act. Pass the brandy. We should eat something before this starts to take effect…

Too late.. toooo late…hahahahahaha…Oh kiss me, my little Pierre, for now we shall design the front of this glorious vehicle. We shall take our professional pencils and make curves everywhere, and mate them with straight lines where no-one expects them to be! We shall specify visible spot welding to assure people of our proletarian roots and we shall not be bothered by bourgeois concepts like having the panels fit closely. We are French – We are free – we want to see the roadway through the door gaps.

An engine? You want an engine, my little Pierre? Pass the brandy. We shall have an engine. Here is one I have prepared earlier on another vehicle. It has everything that suggests engines to those who know how to look. There is an air cleaner and inside it is air. There is a crank case and inside it is oil. There is an exhaust pipe and inside it is the best of French engineering design. No-one will need more. Do not try to trace out the electrical system, my little Pierre – it will not do you good after all that brandy.

 

Will there be seats? Zut Alors! While there is plastic mesh and exposed springs and bent tubular steel, there will be seats! And French bottoms will be on those seats, and grateful for them. Think of that, my little Pierre…French bottoms…flexing up and down in the springs and tubes. Ahh…the brandy is working.

Now for the colour. Something dignified. Subdued, yet suggesting the traditions of French art. I know, my little Pierre, I have it…pass me that orange. And the brandy.

 

The Plastic Bumper Club – Or The Personal Car Club

I have recently been going to car shows that referred to themselves as ” Chrome Bumper ” shows. This was to limit the entries to a certain section of the history of automobiles. That was after narrowing it down further by era and time and type and nationality and degree of reworking and…and…and a great many fun things would have been excluded.

The cars that did show were fine – and presumably fitted into slots that the organisers set up. I had a good time. I got some good shots and some new weblog posts for the column. But I couldn’t help think about a different approach.

Of course this is nothing new. You can have a car show for British cars, Italian cars, VW cars, Veteran cars, etc and the very name sets out the criteria. You can ask for classic cars and the question becomes a wider one – and one that I suspect is driven by money and prestige as much as enthusiasm. You can ask for new cars. But I am thinking that you could have a great show asking for Personal Cars.

Cars that have been taken past the factory fit-out to to become something special to their owners. Driving cars, as opposed to show trailer queens. Cars from any nation and any era that have been endeared to their drivers with something extra. It might be a fully chopped, slammed, sectioned, shaved, and pink fuzzy diced ’49 Mercury. It might be a fuzzy diced Nissan S Cargo. It might be a classic Roller or a classic baby Austin with rebuilt everything. All it needs is to show the hand of man – or woman – after it rolls out of the factory and it is a Personal Car. Paint jobs count big-time. Interiors count big time. Full undercar ricer lighting counts big time. No-one gets excluded because of the bumper or rego sticker or country of origin.

Big show. Fun show. Lotsa food trucks. Shannons making a mint on insurance and the tee shirt guys throwing ’em off the racks. Pinhead striping a silver Audi TT with pink flames. The Forged girls on 15″ high heels. All kinds of a good time being had by all.

The Tinycar

 

At the other end of the spectrum from the Western Suburbs Wank Wagon is the kleinwagen. The Kei. The tiny car that nimbly dodges from side to side – avoiding road taxes, petrol pumps, and occasionally potholes. They have been a feature of motoring in many crowded countries for a long time.

Australia has had a few in its time – we saw the baby Austins, tiny Subarus, Lightburn Zetas and the Goggomobile. There have been Renaults, Citroens, Minis, and Hillman Minxes too but these are just a little bit bigger than the ones to which I refer. Set your mind on the Old Fiat Bambino as the top of the size and work way down.

In their countries of origin they were the stopgap measure that many industries undertook to get something moving after the RAF  and USAAF stopped it – generally by flattening the factories. They needed transport and export and they couldn’t wait until their countries were forgiven – also probably didn’t want to start up the heavy machinery until the trembler switches on the unexploded ordnance had rusted over. The governments of the countries assisted by allowing tax rebates for tiny cars, hiking the taxes on petrol and lubricants ( until the switches rusted over…) and losing some of the incriminating papers for the owners of the factories.

They got basic transport. We got basic amusement. Who could be so heartless as to view a BMW Isetta, an NSU Prinz, or the dear little non-machine gun Messerschmitt without a tear of sentiment. Of course sometimes the lump in the throat was bile as the driver tried to navigate normal Australian traffic from a point of view roughly at the exhaust pipe of all the other cars but that could happen anywhere.

The prime  interior characteristic of the Tinycar was the feeling that you were in a telephone booth. And not a particularly sturdy one at that. The wheels were thin, the seats were thin, and the barrier between you and the traffic whizzing by was thin. The only large thing about the Tinycar was, surprisingly, the driver. Quite a few people who bought them were people who also buy large dinners. Sometimes it was fun to see what actually got out of the car, though that sense of fun could pale when they invited you to go for a ride somewhere and you realised that it was going to be inside a pale blue Tupperware container at 30 miles an hour.

The other thing that was common was the noise. All the little motors – none of them ever over 660cc – were valiant workers but never silent about it. They were the mechanical equivalent of Don Knotts in a nervous mood. Sometimes they got you going reasonably fast but your ears rang for a week.

Will we see them again, now that the Smartcar from Mercedes has been taken of the market? Yes we will, but probably not in Australia on anything other than a club license or a mantlepiece. There are too many build laws here and too many bureaucrats to allow the sort of freedom to experiment that the Tinycar provided. I wish  had one – I would take it out driving at 2:30 AM when no-one was on the roads. I’d rack it up to 60 Km/h and scare myself to death.

 

The Silver Blob

 

 

This is not a ghost story. The car that you see in this column really exists.

I went to the Brockman  Port-To-Whiteman Park run not really expecting to see much new – after all I had been to a number of vintage and veteran shows in the last couple of years and how many more new old cars could there be out there? Well, as Mr. Charles Berry and the senior citizens of Louisiana once said. ” It goes to show you never can tell…”.

My venerable $ 1.25 1963 issue of The Observer’s Book Of Automobiles lists only one entry for the Tatra motor car company. It is a 2-603 Saloon. But the address given for the makers is a gem; Narodni Podnik, Kiprivnice, Czechoslovakia. You can almost smell the sausages and boiled cabbage in that one.

The car I found in the Fremantle park has been in Australia long enough to lose the odour – but it has a charm all its own. I must confess that I like egg-shaped vehicles – The VW beetle, the Audi TT, the various Citroen and Nissan small micro-cars. This Tatra is the essence of ovoid style – so much so that I hope it has rewarded it’s owners over the years with wonderful fuel economy as it slipped through the atmosphere.

The shape almost looks like a tin-toy stamping from the 1930’s – and I feel certain that the basic design of this is well pre-war. You almost look to see a wind-up key protruding from somewhere*. The owner’s notes mentioned that few of them came out to Australia and this may be one of only two extant. It is in good, but not pristine condition – there is a little cracking and lifting on the body at the LHS near the air intake. Nothing that a little TLC body work could not straighten out.

Auto enthusiasts with a styling eye can see other cars in there – the MkII Jaguar saloons – the bathtub Porsches. Something from Buckminster Fuller, perhaps, though Bucky never had that much actual style to hang round his good ideas.

The interior is in good shape, and suggests a mixture of luxury and utilitarianism that is uniquely Mittel-Europ. The front doors are suicide and look bigger than they prove to be – the front side window is tiny. The back door in contrast is big – and if this is a car that is intended to transport people who are ushered into the back seat and then ushered out again ( Party officials and political prisoners…) then this disparity makes sense. Please note that it still exists in some Skoda designs to this day – but I cannot guess why. Perhaps the Bohemians are just resigned to the fact that their back-seat passengers have big bottoms. It’s the beer and sausage…

The engine is apparently a flat four, but the compartment wasn’t open to see. There are air scoops and air dumps so I presume it is a finned air-cooled device.

The one other visitor who pored over it for ages ( As I tried to get a clean shot, drat the woman…) asked in despair where they could possibly put the petrol – there were no filler hatches visible. I explained to her that the cars were filled with gazolin in Prague before they were sent out to Australia and when it ran out the were to be sent back for more. After that she left me alone and went and looked at other cars. Of course my readers will know the truth – the bonnet of the car is the boot of the car and there is likely to be tank of gazolin or pils under there.

As they say in Bohemia” Sgüzc at arn Tahatcz ! ” And I think we can all agree with that.

• I would put a removable plastic wind-up key on it but then I am that sort of a person…

 

 

 

Get Outa Here! Slowly…

Aha. I have just realised that there is a good way to overcome some of the disadvantage that pertains to car shows -the thing that I complained about in a previous column; the overcrowding of the display lines. I’m not a greedy person – I don’t want it all for myself or all to myself …but I do wish for a clean view of it. Now I think I have it.

Normally I leave most events early. Whether it is a professional society dinner, wedding reception, or siege – it is always better not to be there at the end. I have applied this principle to car shows as well – leaving before the show winds up. Not that I would have to do any of the cleaning – I just take pictures and pixels are easy to sweep up – but I should only be in the way as people started pouring kerosene and match heads into their superchargers and tried to get the engines to turn over. Plus I am worried by robust language and I reckon some of the owners would be utilising it as they kicked the cows…

As luck would have it, the Brockman Port To Whiteman Park Run show wound up while I was there. They gave tannoy instructions to the drivers and waved them off through the gate of the grounds onto a main street. This naturally slowed the stream as they fed into traffic, and in turn presented a nice slow cavalcade to view. Sun position was good, focusing was easy, and the only problem was the occasional intrusion of a fat arse in cargo shorts and a fluoro vest who stepped into the line of sight. There is probably always one at every car show and it might well be him every time…

I noted a similar opportunity last year at the end of the Australia Day car show in Melbourne. There were a number of roads exiting the main park and moving down them was slow for the drivers of the veteran and vintage cars. All the better for the photographer. In the future I am going to bide my time – perhaps even go a little later in the day – and mark well the exit roads and possible vantage points. I’ll still try to get close-up detail for cars as well as lurching crowds will permit but the best clear shot will be as they drive away.

Photographer’s note – tempting as it is to use a tripod for this, I still think a hand-held camera and a fill flash will be best. I’ll be using the pre-focus manual method with everything set as the cars approach a fixed point. It’s always a little experimental as to when to release the shutter when you are using an electronic view finder – there is a time lag in any camera. If you have set the speed, aperture, and manual focus, however, you can sight along the top of the camera housing and fire it instantly when the vehicle comes to your pre-selected point. This also works with 17 pounder anti-tank guns but it is more difficult to use them unnoticed – at least with the Fujifilm cameras you can turn the shutter noise off.

Technical note: These images were taken using the new Fujifilm X-T10 and the 27mm f:2.8 pancake lens. What a sweetie of a combination – light and fast. Perfect for touristing it without weight or bulk. Next best will be the new 35mm f:2 when it is released in Australia.

A Plea From The Car Photographers To The Clubs

When you are planning your next car show, could you please park them a little further apart?

We are thrilled to bits that you will be bringing your vintage-veteran-hot rod-street car-sports car-truck-bus-tank to the park-stadium-exhibition hall-mudflat behind the asbestos works. We don’t mind paying at the door-gate-edge of the car park for the privilege of seeing your prize machines and we want to make great pictures of them.

We promise not to stand on the running boards like the punters do, and poke the dashboards like the punters do, and scratch the duco like the punters do. We will be respectful.

We will be utterly patient as the tag-teams of lurching punters slowly walk in front of the cars and progressively block the view…never allowing a clear sight of the edges of the cars. We are trained to stand still in one spot until the exact quarter of a second when the mob clears. We are frequently consulted by still hunters and snipers about how to remain motionless. Ninjas envy us.

But we need a helping hand. If the cars are parked too close together we won’t be able to do them justice. We’ll have to use extremely short focal length lenses and the cars will look distorted as hell. Of course if they are Italian supercars no-one will be able to tell, but the regular British and French sedans will look odd and it will be a dead giveaway.

Likewise, if you park them with their back to the sun, most of the exposures will look too dark – we’ll end up trying to light the front of the car with a reflector or a fill flash and it will look most unnatural. Again the Flopatelli Snazolla III Supraeformaggio won’t suffer too badly, unless it is the open Monza version with the folding wings. And they look bad in ANY light.

We do appreciate the trust and kindness the drivers show by leaving the passenger’s side window down – the interior shots will be so much better – but if you can’t manage that, it’ll be all right anyway. We can boost the shutter speed to 1/180 second, stop down to f:16, and fire a fill flash up at the headliner from the quarter window position while the camera looks in through the side. It’ll be a little dirty but not too bad. If you leave empty beer cans and dirty novels on the front seat that is your affair.

In exchange for these small changes we promise to take good pictures of the way your cars look. We will photoshop out the rust holes – unless you are driving a rat rod, in which case we will photoshop more in for free. We will draw a discreet curtain over the state of the interior floor.