In Part One, we looked at two of the old stagers from the Soviet era. Today, we consider two from the next generation.
By the time the Škoda Estelle and Lada Riva were withdrawn from the market, their engineering was over thirty years out of date and both were hopelessly uncompetitive, selling only on their bargain prices. The countries of the Eastern Bloc realised that they needed to Continue reading “Economy Drive (Part Two)”
Today we take a look at a small but important area of car body design, the window frames and cant rails.
Up until 1982, the standard solution for mating the roof to the sides of the glass house was a rolled flange. In simple terms, the edge of the roof panel was mated to the edge of the bodyside and welded after being rolled by two folds along its length. The resultant u-shaped structure was rigid and provided a useful gutter to stop water flowing down the sides of the car. In some cases, a chrome sheath was slid over the outer edge of the gutter to Continue reading “Theme: Evolution – Cant Rails and Window Gutters”
Driven To Write 