Hi, Forward Lookers,
It's the old auto writer guy again. Got the following msg from Chris Whalen
in which he included some of the predictions I made in a 1956 Motor Life
article. Thought you might enjoy reading it, and my reply. Obviously, I'm
rather proud that, looking back from this point in time, how accurate I was.
Several of you have asked about Vergil Exner. I met him a number of times,
but didn't know him well. When I have time, I'll share some recollections
of Exner and other stylists I knew better, including Alex Tremulis, Gordon
Buehrig and Dick Teague.
>I'm reading through this Forecast from Detroit article you wrote in 1956 in
>preparation for putting it onto the site, and here's what you predicted
>about automobile safety.
>
>SAFETY FEATURES -- 1956 will go down as the year Detroit discovered safety.
>And, while Ford found safety wasn?t as strong a selling pitch as it had
>hoped, the industry probably will never be able to ignore the subject
>completely again. Safety belts, padded panels, safety door latches, etc.
>are here to stay. Other safety items we can look for are shock absorbing
>bumpers or "impact bars," more attention to instrument panel design,
>improved braking systems with the possibility of devices being incorporated
>to prevent locking and skidding. Engineers are studying body design with
>an eye toward providing better "crumple rates" which would soak up impact
>in crashes. The whole subject of automobile safety, however, will be
>guided by a large extent by what such research groups as Cornell?s Crash
>Injury Research Institute discover in the next few years.
>
>
>Of course, everything predicted actually happened.
>
Thanks for sending this along, Chris. It's heart-warming to know that I did
have my ear pretty close to the ground -- and that I had a lot of good
sources! That was the advantage of having worked in & around the industry
before I even became an auto writer. My nearly 4 years at Ford Research &
Engineering (52-55) helped a lot, as did the fact that I belonged to
several car enthusiast groups -- which also attracted a lot of engineering
types. Interviews with the big guns were okay, but then you got the
official party line, mostly. I often learned more useful information having
a few beers with some guys in a Dearborn or Jefferson Ave. bar on a Friday
afternoon.
I also had all sorts of low- and mid-level contacts through friends and
family, people who were connected with this industry in one way or another.
About this time also (circa 1956) several of us auto writers who were
"young turks" on the auto beat used to get together informally for lunch at
the old Ivanhoe restaurant and compare notes. We all worked for different
non-competing publications and we all had different sources, so we had no
trouble trading info and when you put all the pieces together, you often
could get a good idea of what was happening. I was the only guy writing for
what were called "buff books" for car nuts. We had a guy from Steel
Magazine (who had a lot of contacts in the machine tool business, who
supplied tooling to the auto companies), one from Automtive News (dealer
trade paper), the number 2 or 3 guys from Business Week, Advertising Age
and maybe one other.
More later....
Ken
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