[Leica] IMG: American Styling

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 11:11 AM -0400 6/24/09, Jim Shulman wrote:
>At the same time that that the US was covering all sorts of design excess,
>it was also creating
>
>1. Disk brakes (available on the '51 Chrysler
>2. Fuel injection (available from GM on various Chevrolet models from the
>mid-50s onward; Chrysler briefly introduced an electronically governed fuel
>injection system in 1957)
>3. Front wheel drive (introduced in 1929 in the L-29 Cord, and revived in
>the mid-30s Cord sedans. GM and Packard also build experimental front drive
>cars in that era.  Unfortunately, with the technology of the time front
>drive required excessive maintenance.)  US production cars from the 1960s
>included front drive (1966 Olds Toronado and 1967 Cadillac Eldorado), well
>before the first front-drive compact cars appeared in the US.
>4. Torsion bars (in all Chrysler Corp. cars in 1957 and thereafter.)


These were not really US engineering innovations; at best it was a 
co-development. Initial development of all of these systems occurred 
in Europe and US manufacturers in some instances furthered their 
commercial development.

The Olds Toronado was a response to the success some European 
manufacturers were having  with front wheel drive; not a lot of Minis 
showed up in the US, but they sure were a revelation in the European 
marketplace. Citroen had a continuous string of successes with front 
wheel drive from the time of the first Traction Avant in the early 
thirties. The Cord and contemporaneous fwd manufacturers in Europe 
were not successful.


>We could go on with US engineering innovations, including the Trinitron
>(patented by RCA in 1951).
>

Electronics was a whole other matter. Here the US definitely led, and 
I can't think of any Trinitron models with fins and five foot 
overhangs.



>What the rest of the world did VERY well was figure out how to commercialize
>US engineering innovations, making them less expensive and more reliable.
>In many cases, such as front drive and the Trinitron, there were interim
>leaps forward in technology between the innovation and mass
>commercialization.
>
>Jim Shulman
>Wynnewood, PA
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lug-bounces+jshul=comcast.net at leica-users.org
>[mailto:lug-bounces+jshul=comcast.net at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of 
>George
>Lottermoser
>Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:55 AM
>To: Leica Users Group
>Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: American Styling
>
>While the rest of the world engineered:
>disk brakes
>fuel injection
>front-wheel drive
>torsion bars
>etc, etc
>
>The US designed:
>fins
>hood ornaments
>grills
>ridiculous names
>and
>hyperbolic advertising
>
>Regards,
>George Lottermoser
>george at imagist.com
>http://www.imagist.com
>http://www.imagist.com/blog
>http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist
>
>On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:25 PM, Jim Shulman wrote:
>
>>  There are many things that helped to kill the US auto industry,
>>  well above
>>  the styling excess of 50s and 60s cars.
>
>
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>
>
>_______________________________________________
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-- 

    *            Henning J. Wulff
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