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tion. Two of the author's students at the Illinois Institute of Technology designed the
chassis, using a Honda motorcycle engine for power. The author then created this
model as a possible body design. If you have other notions about the way it should
look, see page 88 for instructions on entering PM's Suburba-Car design contest
84
PM
ENNEDY EXPRESSWAY, Chi-
K cago's major suburban artery, has a
rush-hour name. It is called, by the natives
who use it, "America's longest parking
lot."
This is a pretty state of affairs—espe-
cially in the Land of Lincoln where loy-
alty to accomplishments and "things"
usually is so intense that it borders on
intramural nationalism.
Yet the sarcasm directed at this new
giant expressway, leaping across the
swarming midwestern megalopolis with ABOUT AS TINY as an enclosed vehicle can be,
this three-wheeler carries one person. All ve-
seven-league strides, reflects a burgeoning hicles shown here were designed by students at
problem in nearly every major American the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago
city. It is the price we are paying for the
four-wheeled dinosaur (often two or three)
in every garage. Each new car model year,
instead of solving the problem, compli-
cates it as cars grow longer, wider, more
powerful and unwieldly.
At present, the average car needs about
300 square feet of space—whereas the aver-
age person uses less than 100 square feet
for any given activity (shopping or din-
ing, for example). This means that three
times as much precious space must be
provided for parking and roads as for the
activity that leads a driver onto the high-
POWER CHAIR, propelled by 4-1/2hp four-cycle
ways in the first place. engine, was designed to be driven to station,
Aerial views of Los Angeles reveal that transported by rapid-transit train, then driven
to office. It occupies 15 square feet of space
no less than 70 percent of the city area
has been devoted to streets and parking.
Now, you are guessing that I am about
to make the dire forecast that the king-
size luxury car is doomed. Not so. There is
a place for the family bus—and, indeed, a
real need for it. But it is also becoming
perfectly clear that we must have smaller
cars.
There are three factors forcing us in
this direction. The first is our trend to
urbanization; population density continu-
NOV. 1965 85
? •«•
STUDENT'S EFFORTS have been concentrated on de- tation. Relationship of one student design to current
signing small vehicles that will take up little space automobiles is illustrated in graph. At left is a 17-3/4
but will still serve as adequate personal transpor- foot-long 1965 Chevrolet. In the center is the 13-1/3
ally goes up. Second, there are more cars One student, Louis Richards, attempting
per capita. Over the last 30 years we have to determine how tiny a personal vehicle
progressed from one-car families to two- could be—how to "motorize a pedestrian,"
car families, and there are now many as he put it—built the Skeeter several
three-car families. We are fast approach- years back (see photo, page 87). In fact,
ing the time when there may be one auto- he built four of the vehicles, which rather
mobile for every adult. Third, there's the resemble the currently popular motorized
rapid increase in population. skateboards.
All this indicates the need for smaller The various Skeeters ranged from a 12-
cars as an interim remedy to prevent the pound vehicle with a model airplane en-
breakdown of urban traffic. gine that could propel a man 12 mph to an
There's just too great a gap between the 18-pound machine with a half-hp engine
pedestrian and today's automobile. Ameri- that would zip along at 20 mph.
cans seem to regard anything beyond Another student, Makato Kamegawa,
three-eighths of a mile as too far to walk, built a four-passenger car nearly two feet
so they hop in the family juggernaut when shorter than the familiar Volkswagen. The
the urge to be somewhere else hits them. car is powered by a two-cylinder Toyota
(And it's ridiculous to see a 4000-pound, engine and has front-wheel drive.
300-hp vehicle moving a 100-pound house- The two passengers in the rear enter
wife and a bag of groceries at 25 mph.) through a rear door and seat facing back-
Some of the sleekest small vehicles I've wards. The rear seat folds up so that the
seen are those designed by students at back of the car can be used to carry
the Institute of Design of Illinois Institute freight.
of Technology. Two other students designed the chassis
86 PM
SPARKY'S CAB opens like a clamshell for walk-in
entry. Rear deck has fold-down seat for extra pas-
sengers. The entire vehicle weighs 1000 pounds
NOV. 1965 87
Transportation's Missing Link
(Continued from page 67)
and the like simply do not appeal to com-
fort-loving Americans.
The lack of appeal is especially true in
major cities where there's a wide range
of temperature and there's much rain and
snow. As it happens, most of our large
cities fit this description.
In addition, the rider of the small ve-
hicle is intimidated by the behemoths that
share the road with him. The solution to
this problem is to have protected right-
of-ways separate from automobile traffic.
The eventual solution must be to separate
completely the cars from local pedestrian
and personal vehicle transportation. This
has been done in many cities of Europe
where there are three separate traffic
lanes: pedestrian, cycle and auto.
The ultimate answer to the urban
transportation problem—in terms of safe-
ty, economy, speed and land use—is to
have high-speed mass transit to carry the
very small personal vehicles that riders
use for short trips to and from terminals.
Already such plans are being proposed to
deal with the aggravating traffic problems
now upon us.
Several Institute of Design students
have tried their skill at designing vehicles
of this sort.
Sparky Is a Hitch Hiker
Sparky, for instance, is an electrically
powered runabout that's fitted with a
smoothly contoured aluminum body
(photos, pages 86-87). It can travel 30
mph, and goes 60 miles on one charge of
its batteries. Granted, it's a rather modest
performance compared to a gasoline-
powered car, but Sparky was conceived
as a systems car to be shipped at distances
over 25 miles by special high-speed rail
transportation.
Another piggyback people-carrier is
the Power Chair, which is simply a seat
on wheels (photo, page 85). It travels up
to 45 mph powered by a 4-1/2-hp four-
cycle engine.
After carrying a commuter to his train,
then being transported into the city, the
Power Chair could be driven to the of-
fice. Student Douglas Stout designed it.
But, even with all this thought going
into design of small cars, how do you get
Americans to accept them? We talk of
speed, comfort and safety when we defend
big cars, but it's primarily for the sym-
bolism that Americans want their cars to
be as big as possible.
Small cars seem to be less acceptable
to Americans because of a common fallacy
(Please turn to page 256)
254 PM
Transportation's Missing Link
(Continued from page 254)
Fast Photos
A device used for making photographs
at the rate of 100 million frames a second
—about 10 times faster than any previous-
ly made for industrial studies—is in use
at the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground.
It is used for recording shock and detona-
tion waves in the study of explosives.
These waves move at a velocity of 8090
meters a second, or roughly 18,000 miles
per hour. The ultra-high speeds are ob-
tained by using a framing grid and rotat-
ing mirror.
256 PM