Turbos? Alloy heads? Fuel injection? Car junkie Glenn Torrens reveals the mech-tech of motoring that most amazes him
Military and motoring have been the reason (excuse?) for plenty of technological advancements over the years. For instance, the making of firearms advanced greatly in the early 1800s with the introduction of American gunsmith Eli Whitney’s ‘interchangeability’ concept in the making of gun parts.
In short, expensive hand-made muskets became obsolete as firearms manufactured from standardised parts became the norm. Those manufacturing principles changed the world.
In more recent decades – in many of our lifetimes – technologies such as computing/internet, satellite navigation and remote-controlled flying drones have also been pushed along by military needs.
Cars? Although Ford is often credited, apparently it was Oldsmobile that pioneered the car assembly line in the early 1900s. Workers with piles of parts installed those parts to a car chassis as it went slowly past their stations on a moving line. A decade later, this production line tech was improved and the idea taken worldwide by Ford for the manufacture of its venerable Model T – which is probably where the slightly erroneous credit comes in – but production line architecture has been the foundation for the manufacturing industry for more than a century.
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There are other various interesting aspects of vehicle tech – such as fuel injection and turbocharging and the safety of airbags and stability control – to study and respect, but our favourite hobby of cars and motoring has given the world a lot of other fresh tech over the decades, too. Everything from surface finishing (said another way: Paint, plating and plastics) to robotics to electronics to glass making to tailored-blank panel stamping to rapid prototyping and 3D printing to oil/lubricant tech has been developed/innovated, popularised and advanced by the manufacture of cars. The car industry is sometimes quoted as being the ‘university of technology’ because to design and create a car, just about every type of technology is involved.
I’ve been fascinated by all these techy tidbits, personally and professionally, for most of my life.
But do you know what aspect of automotive technology impresses me the most? The component or system in a car that makes me shake my head in absolute mind-melted wonderment as to how it works and how the engineers and designers ‘get it done’?
It’s the tyres.
I mean, how the heck do those gurus prevent tyres from being torn inside-out when accelerating or braking, from spinning apart at big speeds, from melting on hot roads in summer, from shattering like ice in winter, from being destroyed by rocks and gravel… and all the while staying flexible and compliant and grippy and comfortable and durable and dealing with the weight of a vehicle that, during a fast corner, might be pushing a tonne down on one tyre’s toast-sized section of tread?
That is what tyres do. It is what they have to cope with.
It is what they must survive.
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It was only in many of our grandparents’ era that an interstate holiday required the knowledge of how to fix a puncture, change a tyre on a rim, and the wisdom to carry several spares. Back then, a set of tyres might have lasted not long and cost a lot.
Now, we can drive interstate before lunch with little more than a passing glance at our tyres. Tyres often last upwards of 60,000km and these days, reasonable ones for a daily driver or regularly driven classic car are not much more than the price of a box of beer, per corner.
Of all the systems and components in a car, I reckon tyres are the most astonishing.
From Unique Cars #472, Nov/Dec 2022