True or false?

“There is no such thing as a beautiful car, only a car that looks beautiful when viewed from specific angles”

mollwollfumble said:

True or false?

“There is no such thing as a beautiful car, only a car that looks beautiful when viewed from specific angles”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it’s a value judgement.

Michael V said:

mollwollfumble said:

True or false?

“There is no such thing as a beautiful car, only a car that looks beautiful when viewed from specific angles”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it’s a value judgement.

E types look fairly good from most angles.
My Lancia Fulvia coupe was the same.

Tamb said:

Michael V said:

mollwollfumble said:

True or false?

“There is no such thing as a beautiful car, only a car that looks beautiful when viewed from specific angles”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it’s a value judgement.

E types look fairly good from most angles.
My Lancia Fulvia coupe was the same.

Got pictures?

mollwollfumble said:

True or false?

“There is no such thing as a beautiful car, only a car that looks beautiful when viewed from specific angles”

Sounds an odd true or false. Apart from beauty being in the eye of the beholder, many things may not be beautiful when viewed from specific angles. It’s true many cars have a best perspective, some cars it’s an aggressive front end, Alfa Brera, some cars (many) a rear three quarter view. Some just the line of a mudguard like the Dino, or a side profile like a jag xj220.

DV reminds me, one of the newer cars I really like the look of, is the Lexus LC500. Car porn.

Tamb said:

Michael V said:

mollwollfumble said:

True or false?

“There is no such thing as a beautiful car, only a car that looks beautiful when viewed from specific angles”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it’s a value judgement.

E types look fairly good from most angles.
My Lancia Fulvia coupe was the same.

AwesomeO said:

DV reminds me, one of the newer cars I really like the look of, is the Lexus LC500. Car porn.

Let’s have a look.

E type Jag. Not so great from this angle.

Lancia Fulvia Coupe. From this angle – yuk. Looks like it’s trying to be a boat.

Lexus LC500. Good from most angles, but not all. Perhaps it’s just the white one (and yellow one) that’s ugly. Looks like it’s bleeding from the eyes

Is that the best you’ve got?

mollwollfumble said:

Tamb said:

Michael V said:

E types look fairly good from most angles.
My Lancia Fulvia coupe was the same.

AwesomeO said:

DV reminds me, one of the newer cars I really like the look of, is the Lexus LC500. Car porn.

Let’s have a look.

E type Jag. Not so great from this angle.

Lancia Fulvia Coupe. From this angle – yuk. Looks like it’s trying to be a boat.

Lexus LC500. Good from most angles, but not all. Perhaps it’s just the white one (and yellow one) that’s ugly. Looks like it’s bleeding from the eyes

Is that the best you’ve got?

Best angle for the LC is from the front three quarter, it accentuates those sexy hips and most cars look better in darker colours. But yeah, you can nit pick just about any car.

I’d say an ordinary Jaguar Mk II is better looking than the E-type. Sleek from all angles.

AwesomeO said:

mollwollfumble said:

True or false?

“There is no such thing as a beautiful car, only a car that looks beautiful when viewed from specific angles”

Sounds an odd true or false. Apart from beauty being in the eye of the beholder, many things may not be beautiful when viewed from specific angles. It’s true many cars have a best perspective, some cars it’s an aggressive front end, Alfa Brera, some cars (many) a rear three quarter view. Some just the line of a mudguard like the Dino, or a side profile like a jag xj220.

Did you google these?

And the e type looks better topless, less heavy in the rear end. Enzo considered it the most beautiful car.

Many very handsome British sports cars of the 1930s – 60s.

Bubblecar said:

I’d say an ordinary Jaguar Mk II is better looking than the E-type. Sleek from all angles.

Jaguar Mk II may be as good as it gets. Not great from a direct side view, but pretty good other angles.

AwesomeO said:

And the e type looks better topless, less heavy in the rear end. Enzo considered it the most beautiful car.

Topless E type. Definitely better topless – but not with driver in it.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Yuck, Jaguars mistake. That was after being taken over by ford, they basically slapped a jag top body with lots on internal garnish over a Ford platform front wheel drive. No one was convinced.

Jag was later sold at a loss to Tata in India. That was the rebirth, Tata promised money for retooling and a free hand in design and it’s now profitable again and a strong brand.

AwesomeO said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Yuck, Jaguars mistake. That was after being taken over by ford, they basically slapped a jag top body with lots on internal garnish over a Ford platform front wheel drive. No one was convinced.

Jag was later sold at a loss to Tata in India. That was the rebirth, Tata promised money for retooling and a free hand in design and it’s now profitable again and a strong brand.

Don’t tell that to my sister who has that model.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Looks nice. What is it?

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Looks nice. What is it?

F type Jag.

Someone just drew my attention to the Pussycar Automodule. Designed to make parking easy. Weird or what.

mollwollfumble said:

Someone just drew my attention to the Pussycar Automodule. Designed to make parking easy. Weird or what.

Reminds me of the two guys in Byron Bay..

“I just saw a space man!”

“Didja park in it man?”

Looks good to me. :)

Spiny Norman said:

Looks good to me. :)

Looks like fun, but not much room for shopping.

Bubblecar said:

Spiny Norman said:

Looks good to me. :)

Looks like fun, but not much room for shopping.

210 kW, 560 kg. And yes, quite right that there’s not a lot of spare space in the car – Though there’s a reasonable bit of space behind the seats.

Lancia Stratos

Spiny Norman said:

Lancia Stratos

More reliable with Celica running gear.

Top Fueller, in slow-motion

Spiny Norman said:

Lancia Stratos

Which one?

The one in the YouTube looks like aluminium siding with a bit of Hummer thrown in, trimmed down into the shape of a sports car, and painted contrasting colours.

But then there’s this. Yes it does look better when the front wheels are on higher ground than the back.

Hello, what do I just on my bookshelf?

The book “The Aesthetics of Engineering Design”. Perhaps I should read it.

Another car question. Which is better, or is the answer more complicated?

• Front engine, rear engine, or mid-engine?
• Front wheel steering or four wheel steering?
• Front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or 4WD?
• Longer front than back or longer back than front?
• Ground effect (more downforce at the front) vs spoiler (more downforce at the back), both or neither?

For the last of these, aerodynamics strongly suggests longer back than front, many cars have longer backs than other cars have fronts, but longer back than front is seldom seen.

mollwollfumble said:

Another car question. Which is better, or is the answer more complicated?

• Front engine, rear engine, or mid-engine?
• Front wheel steering or four wheel steering?
• Front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or 4WD?
• Longer front than back or longer back than front?
• Ground effect (more downforce at the front) vs spoiler (more downforce at the back), both or neither?

For the last of these, aerodynamics strongly suggests longer back than front, many cars have longer backs than other cars have fronts, but longer back than front is seldom seen.

Very much depends on what is meant by better.

mollwollfumble said:

Another car question. Which is better, or is the answer more complicated?

• Front engine, rear engine, or mid-engine?
• Front wheel steering or four wheel steering?
• Front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or 4WD?
• Longer front than back or longer back than front?
• Ground effect (more downforce at the front) vs spoiler (more downforce at the back), both or neither?

For the last of these, aerodynamics strongly suggests longer back than front, many cars have longer backs than other cars have fronts, but longer back than front is seldom seen.

It’s more complicated – There is no one type that is better at everything than other types.
Typically you want even weight distribution 50:50 for good handling. Though if you have more weight on the driven wheels that will give you more traction – But not on a FWD as when you accelerate the load transfer takes weight off the front. So for best acceleration you would want the engine at the rear, driving the rear wheels.
Back to handling. All things being equal, you don’t actually want a 50:50 weight distribution as that will cause slight understeer. But only on tighter corners, so for most cars 50:50 works okay. But if all you’re doing is tight corners, then you want more weight to the rear to reduce the understeer and also if the car is RWD as that also helps improve rear traction. Good RWD racing cars – not ones based on road cars – often will have 55% – 60% of the weight on the rear wheels.
The big car manufacturers like FWD cars as they are usually safer for the general public, whose average driving skills are quite low. They will almost always understeer and that’s easier for the average person to control, rather than oversteer which will cause the average person to spin and crash.
Cars with the engines at one end or another will have a higher polar moment of yaw, thus making them easier to control for the average driver. Purpose-built racing cars want a low polar moment and try to have the heavy engine as close to the middle as possible, letting them change direction faster.
There are some small advantages in having four-wheel steering, but they are usually relatively minor and compared to the cost of adding such a system it’s often not worth it. In the 90’s Mazda played with specially-shaped polyurethane bushes in the rear suspension on the RX-7 to allow a little rear-steer, in reaction to the lateral forces generated when cornering. It kinda worked okay, but the bushes wore out relatively quickly (AFAIK)
The term ground effect is the total aerodynamic downforce created by the aerodynamic devices on the car, not just one end or part of it. Wings do not create ground effect, as they aren’t near the ground. The various aero devices such as air dams, skirts, vortex generators, undertrays, and diffusers can all generate ground effect. Downforce generated by ground effect creates less drag and turbulence than wings or spoilers, but is more difficult to do as the car needs to move up & down over bumps and that has to be allowed for with the parts closest to the ground.
It’s possible to have combinations of suspension geometry and aero to make otherwise unpleasant racing cars work better dynamically. For example the Nascar V8’s that you see running around oval tracks in the US have a very clever and effective suspension & aero package – They are set up so that when accelerating in a straight line the nose of the car lifts a bit and that lets air flow under it better and the pitch angle reduces aero drag as well. But when the lateral load from the left turns is generated, the nose drops right down and the air dam at the front blocks off most of the air from going under the car, which creates low-pressure and so helps suck the car onto the ground.
What I’m trying to get the other students in our uni’s FSAE team to do is forget putting damn wings on the car and just got for a really good undertray. The reason being is that the average speed of the cars is only about 51 km/h so for the wings to work at low speeds they have to be quite large, and also often up quite high. And that means a huge amount of drag up high that rapidly gets worse as the speed builds up, but also more weight high up which is pretty bad for keeping the CoG low. A low CoG is critical!
What I want them to do is to simply mount the undertray on the wheel uprights, so it stays at the same height above the ground all the time, so we can seal the edges much easier physically and aerodynamically with controlled vortexes. It’ll create far more downforce than any of the wings on any of the cars and have only a fraction of the drag.
They seem to have trouble understanding this. :(

The worry with better in regards to cars is you could have a Bogan war over which is better Fords or Holden’s.

Cymek said:

The worry with better in regards to cars is you could have a Bogan war over which is better Fords or Holden’s.

Redundant question now. No more Commodores or Falcons.

Tamb said:

Cymek said:

The worry with better in regards to cars is you could have a Bogan war over which is better Fords or Holden’s.

Redundant question now. No more Commodores or Falcons.

At the moment the Camaro to be converted to right hand drive is pulled apart by HSV, components replaced and put together, an expensive exercise. The next model series will have chassis for both left and right hand drive at the factory, price parity will be returned.

Expect to see the war continue, Camaro v Mustang.

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

Cymek said:

The worry with better in regards to cars is you could have a Bogan war over which is better Fords or Holden’s.

Redundant question now. No more Commodores or Falcons.

At the moment the Camaro to be converted to right hand drive is pulled apart by HSV, components replaced and put together, an expensive exercise. The next model series will have chassis for both left and right hand drive at the factory, price parity will be returned.

Expect to see the war continue, Camaro v Mustang.

The true blue fans won’t follow that contest. Yank not Aussie cars.

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

Redundant question now. No more Commodores or Falcons.

At the moment the Camaro to be converted to right hand drive is pulled apart by HSV, components replaced and put together, an expensive exercise. The next model series will have chassis for both left and right hand drive at the factory, price parity will be returned.

Expect to see the war continue, Camaro v Mustang.

The true blue fans won’t follow that contest. Yank not Aussie cars.

Same market. Trust me, the wars will continue.

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

At the moment the Camaro to be converted to right hand drive is pulled apart by HSV, components replaced and put together, an expensive exercise. The next model series will have chassis for both left and right hand drive at the factory, price parity will be returned.

Expect to see the war continue, Camaro v Mustang.

The true blue fans won’t follow that contest. Yank not Aussie cars.

Same market. Trust me, the wars will continue.

Maybe, because the parent companies will fund a pretend rivalry.

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

The true blue fans won’t follow that contest. Yank not Aussie cars.

Same market. Trust me, the wars will continue.

Maybe, because the parent companies will fund a pretend rivalry.

Pretend? GM would have noticed the way the Ford has sold here, I think it’s biggest market outside of America, and wants some of the action. Preferably all of it. That’s the way markets work.

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Same market. Trust me, the wars will continue.

Maybe, because the parent companies will fund a pretend rivalry.

Pretend? GM would have noticed the way the Ford has sold here, I think it’s biggest market outside of America, and wants some of the action. Preferably all of it. That’s the way markets work.

Yes. I’ve noticed a lot of Mustangs in the cities. Not many Camaros though.

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

Maybe, because the parent companies will fund a pretend rivalry.

Pretend? GM would have noticed the way the Ford has sold here, I think it’s biggest market outside of America, and wants some of the action. Preferably all of it. That’s the way markets work.

Yes. I’ve noticed a lot of Mustangs in the cities. Not many Camaros though.

Camaro is limited in numbers because of the way HSV has contracted and approx 20k dollars more.

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Pretend? GM would have noticed the way the Ford has sold here, I think it’s biggest market outside of America, and wants some of the action. Preferably all of it. That’s the way markets work.

Yes. I’ve noticed a lot of Mustangs in the cities. Not many Camaros though.

Camaro is limited in numbers because of the way HSV has contracted and approx 20k dollars more.

I should add, you would have to be really really keen to buy a Camaro now because everyone interested would know a cheaper right hand model is just around the corner, next year I think, which will undercut and devalue immediatly.

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Pretend? GM would have noticed the way the Ford has sold here, I think it’s biggest market outside of America, and wants some of the action. Preferably all of it. That’s the way markets work.

Yes. I’ve noticed a lot of Mustangs in the cities. Not many Camaros though.

Camaro is limited in numbers because of the way HSV has contracted and approx 20k dollars more.

OK. Makes sense.
On a slightly different line.
The Oz cops are using Kia Stingers & have sent one/some? to the US for police evaluation.

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

Another car question. Which is better, or is the answer more complicated?

• Front engine, rear engine, or mid-engine?
• Front wheel steering or four wheel steering?
• Front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or 4WD?
• Longer front than back or longer back than front?
• Ground effect (more downforce at the front) vs spoiler (more downforce at the back), both or neither?

For the last of these, aerodynamics strongly suggests longer back than front, many cars have longer backs than other cars have fronts, but longer back than front is seldom seen.

It’s more complicated – There is no one type that is better at everything than other types.

Typically you want even weight distribution 50:50 for good handling. … Good RWD racing cars – not ones based on road cars – often will have 55% – 60% of the weight on the rear wheels.

The big car manufacturers like FWD cars as they are usually safer for the general public, whose average driving skills are quite low. They will almost always understeer and that’s easier for the average person to control, rather than oversteer which will cause the average person to spin and crash.

Cars with the engines at one end or another will have a higher polar moment of yaw, thus making them easier to control for the average driver. Purpose-built racing cars want a low polar moment and try to have the heavy engine as close to the middle as possible, letting them change direction faster.

There are some small advantages in having four-wheel steering, but they are usually relatively minor and compared to the cost of adding such a system it’s often not worth it. In the 90’s Mazda played with specially-shaped polyurethane bushes in the rear suspension on the RX-7 to allow a little rear-steer, in reaction to the lateral forces generated when cornering. It kinda worked okay, but the bushes wore out relatively quickly (AFAIK)

… various aero devices such as air dams, skirts, vortex generators, undertrays, and diffusers can all generate ground effect. Downforce generated by ground effect creates less drag and turbulence than wings or spoilers, but is more difficult to do as the car needs to move up & down over bumps and that has to be allowed for with the parts closest to the ground.

… Nascar V8’s … are set up so that when accelerating in a straight line the nose of the car lifts a bit and that lets air flow under it better and the pitch angle reduces aero drag as well. But when the lateral load from the left turns is generated, the nose drops right down and the air dam at the front blocks off most of the air from going under the car, which creates low-pressure and so helps suck the car onto the ground.

What I’m trying to get the other students in our uni’s FSAE team to do is forget putting damn wings on the car and just got for a really good undertray. The reason being is that the average speed of the cars is only about 51 km/h so for the wings to work at low speeds they have to be quite large, and also often up quite high. And that means a huge amount of drag up high that rapidly gets worse as the speed builds up, but also more weight high up which is pretty bad for keeping the CoG low. A low CoG is critical!

What I want them to do is to simply mount the undertray on the wheel uprights, so it stays at the same height above the ground all the time, so we can seal the edges much easier physically and aerodynamically with controlled vortexes. It’ll create far more downforce than any of the wings on any of the cars and have only a fraction of the drag. They seem to have trouble understanding this. :(

Thanks, that’s a great answer. I totally get that about “is forget putting damn wings on the car and just got for a really good undertray”. I know enough about aerodynamics to know that wings don’t even begin to kick in until about 70 or 80 km/h. The downforce is roughly proportional to the square of the speed. And low COG definitely is critical, as you say.

I hadn’t thought it was possible for an undertray to be fixed to wheel uprights, but why not – the relevant parts of the suspension can be moved out of the way. And stopping the undertray from moving up and down with the bumps in the road is really great.

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Tamb said:

Yes. I’ve noticed a lot of Mustangs in the cities. Not many Camaros though.

Camaro is limited in numbers because of the way HSV has contracted and approx 20k dollars more.

OK. Makes sense.
On a slightly different line.
The Oz cops are using Kia Stingers & have sent one/some? to the US for police evaluation.

Nice looking car.

Peak Warming Man said:

Tamb said:

AwesomeO said:

Camaro is limited in numbers because of the way HSV has contracted and approx 20k dollars more.

OK. Makes sense.
On a slightly different line.
The Oz cops are using Kia Stingers & have sent one/some? to the US for police evaluation.

Nice looking car.

Apparently they require little alteration to bring them to police spec.

Water powered anti grav landrovers are the shiz

Zarkov said:

Water powered anti grav landrovers are the shiz

taken your vitamins this morn?

mollwollfumble said:

Thanks, that’s a great answer. I totally get that about “is forget putting damn wings on the car and just got for a really good undertray”. I know enough about aerodynamics to know that wings don’t even begin to kick in until about 70 or 80 km/h. The downforce is roughly proportional to the square of the speed. And low COG definitely is critical, as you say.

I hadn’t thought it was possible for an undertray to be fixed to wheel uprights, but why not – the relevant parts of the suspension can be moved out of the way. And stopping the undertray from moving up and down with the bumps in the road is really great.

No you can make wings work at a slower speed but as you can imagine they have to be quite aggressive, hence bucket loads of drag as well. Even with low-speed wings they still tend to have a ‘turn-on’ minimum speed, slower than that the airflow doesn’t tend to stick to the low-pressure side very well. It’s less of a problem with undertrays as they are so close to the ground anyway and so get a good venturi effect going.
When wings first appeared in Formula One, in 1968, they were first attached to the uprights. Colin Chapman of Lotus racing fame was the instigator for those, and typical of Chapman they were made ever so fragile to save weight. And also typical of Champman’s car they were too fragile and broke at high-speed, killing the grip and so the cars crashed. The FIA then stipulated that all aero devices had to then be fitted to the chassis, not the suspension.
For the full ground-effect cars – again from Chapman & Lotus, they used moving skirts along the sides of the car to seal the airflow coming in from the outside into the low pressure regions in the tunnels under the sidepods. The FIA banned those as well after a while, and that helped reduce the downforce generated.
So Chapman fought back in a clever way, with the Lotus 88 Twin Chassis car. It had a pretty conventional racing car chassis underneath, but on top of that was a full aero package that had good wings, tunnels, and skirts. The two parts were connected by soft springs, so when the car was standing still the lowest parts were above the minimum allowed height above the track. When the car got up to a low-ish speed, the downforce generated by the aero part of the car collapsed the springs so that the full downforce then worked on the car. From memory the FIA didn’t even let it run in anger once.

FWIW the modern F1 cars, even without the big tunnels and skirts of the old cars, actually create slightly more downforce now than the old cars. The practice of vortex generation & control is critical to large areas of the car. I can appreciate how clever the entire package is, but I find them quite ugly.

Here’s the 88 in a bit more detail ->

transition said:

Zarkov said:

Water powered anti grav landrovers are the shiz

taken your vitamins this morn?

Yes

Could you create a car that automatically alters its aerodynamics depending on the speed its travelling

Zarkov said:

transition said:

Zarkov said:

Water powered anti grav landrovers are the shiz

taken your vitamins this morn?

Yes

excellent.

what now?

Zarkov said:

Water powered anti grav landrovers are the shiz

They tried some in Townsville recently.
Worked far too well.

transition said:

Zarkov said:

transition said:

taken your vitamins this morn?

Yes

excellent.

what now?

I’m hitch hiking around Tasmanian waiting for Bubblecar to give the OK for me to move in with him and then I will make the journey.

Zarkov said:

transition said:

Zarkov said:

Yes

excellent.

what now?

I’m hitch hiking around Tasmanian waiting for Bubblecar to give the OK for me to move in with him and then I will make the journey.

I doubt the lad gets bored easily, but you might break him

mollwollfumble said:

Hello, what do I just on my bookshelf?

The book “The Aesthetics of Engineering Design”. Perhaps I should read it.

Starting to read it now. A few observations.

• The engineering design comes first, aesthetics second. Never ever do it the other way around – it doesn’t work.

• Smooth off dangerous sharp corners.

• Tighter engineering tolerances allow smaller parts which are more aesthetically pleasing.

• Reduce clutter, if a warning light can substitute for a gauge then use the warning light. Monolithic looks better than modular.

• Ease of use comes into aesthetics a lot, for example lining up two parts is much easier if they are adjacent. Ease of manufacture.

• Keep inaccuracies out of sight.

• In road junctions, too-slow divergences lead to visual ambiguity.

• Keep aware of optical illusions, does it look like it does what it’s supposed to do? Does it look strong? Does it look even? Is there a visual unity?

• Care is needed in the appearance of lettering.

• Use competing colours for clarity.

• Transition sections help to unify disparate geometric shapes. A transition is more easily accepted if it has an easily seen start and end.

• Proportions should be either exactly equal to, or completely different to, any formal system of proportion. eg. 1:1 and 1:1.25 are good, because 1.25 is sufficiently different from 1, but 1:1.1 will not work. Nor will 1:1.9. The golden ratio 1:1.618 will work but 1:1.61 will not.

• Anchor geometric shapes to verticals or horizontals. In most engineering, verticals are preferred to horizontals. Colour can help.

etc. No mention of trying to make engineered products look beautiful. Making them look simple, smooth and strong predominates.

transition said:

Zarkov said:

transition said:

excellent.

what now?

I’m hitch hiking around Tasmanian waiting for Bubblecar to give the OK for me to move in with him and then I will make the journey.

I doubt the lad gets bored easily, but you might break him

We will be best friends and he will love doing road kill taxidermy with me, I bet we could even dig up Rodney and fix him up

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Hello, what do I just on my bookshelf?

The book “The Aesthetics of Engineering Design”. Perhaps I should read it.

Starting to read it now. A few observations.

• The engineering design comes first, aesthetics second. Never ever do it the other way around – it doesn’t work.

• Smooth off dangerous sharp corners.

• Tighter engineering tolerances allow smaller parts which are more aesthetically pleasing.

• Reduce clutter, if a warning light can substitute for a gauge then use the warning light. Monolithic looks better than modular.

• Ease of use comes into aesthetics a lot, for example lining up two parts is much easier if they are adjacent. Ease of manufacture.

• Keep inaccuracies out of sight.

• In road junctions, too-slow divergences lead to visual ambiguity.

• Keep aware of optical illusions, does it look like it does what it’s supposed to do? Does it look strong? Does it look even? Is there a visual unity?

• Care is needed in the appearance of lettering.

• Use competing colours for clarity.

• Transition sections help to unify disparate geometric shapes. A transition is more easily accepted if it has an easily seen start and end.

• Proportions should be either exactly equal to, or completely different to, any formal system of proportion. eg. 1:1 and 1:1.25 are good, because 1.25 is sufficiently different from 1, but 1:1.1 will not work. Nor will 1:1.9. The golden ratio 1:1.618 will work but 1:1.61 will not.

• Anchor geometric shapes to verticals or horizontals. In most engineering, verticals are preferred to horizontals. Colour can help.

etc. No mention of trying to make engineered products look beautiful. Making them look simple, smooth and strong predominates.

Most modern cars are covered in lumps & ugly protuberances.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Hello, what do I just on my bookshelf?

The book “The Aesthetics of Engineering Design”. Perhaps I should read it.

Starting to read it now. A few observations.

• The engineering design comes first, aesthetics second. Never ever do it the other way around – it doesn’t work.
  

Try telling that to an architect.

mollwollfumble said:

The golden ratio 1:1.618 will work but 1:1.61 will not.

Bullshit :)

What is the name of Bubblecar’s village

Re the flat underbelly, they have a rise in them, or a runner to create a low pressure zone. But yeah, they are painless aerodynamically with drag and creates a much cleaner and nicer design. Incidentally with that some of the devices at the front of a car work they create high pressure spirals going down the sides of the car which prevent the air under the car spilling out so the underbelly is more effective.

I assume this thread is a fun quiz about Bubblecar.

Rate these as true or false

1/ Car owns a rebec, a zebec and a tenrec.
2/ Car is a dual citizen
3/ In 1987, Car was the runnerup in an Edward Mulhare lookalike contest, being narrowly defeated by Rex Harrison.

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Hello, what do I just on my bookshelf?

The book “The Aesthetics of Engineering Design”. Perhaps I should read it.

Starting to read it now. A few observations.

• The engineering design comes first, aesthetics second. Never ever do it the other way around – it doesn’t work.

• Smooth off dangerous sharp corners.

• Tighter engineering tolerances allow smaller parts which are more aesthetically pleasing.

• Reduce clutter, if a warning light can substitute for a gauge then use the warning light. Monolithic looks better than modular.

• Ease of use comes into aesthetics a lot, for example lining up two parts is much easier if they are adjacent. Ease of manufacture.

• Keep inaccuracies out of sight.

• In road junctions, too-slow divergences lead to visual ambiguity.

• Keep aware of optical illusions, does it look like it does what it’s supposed to do? Does it look strong? Does it look even? Is there a visual unity?

• Care is needed in the appearance of lettering.

• Use competing colours for clarity.

• Transition sections help to unify disparate geometric shapes. A transition is more easily accepted if it has an easily seen start and end.

• Proportions should be either exactly equal to, or completely different to, any formal system of proportion. eg. 1:1 and 1:1.25 are good, because 1.25 is sufficiently different from 1, but 1:1.1 will not work. Nor will 1:1.9. The golden ratio 1:1.618 will work but 1:1.61 will not.

• Anchor geometric shapes to verticals or horizontals. In most engineering, verticals are preferred to horizontals. Colour can help.

etc. No mention of trying to make engineered products look beautiful. Making them look simple, smooth and strong predominates.

Most modern cars are covered in lumps & ugly protuberances.

Seems a bold claim. I would have said modern cars have simple streamlined designs compared to the olden days

Zarkov said:

What is the name of Bubblecar’s village

fixationvillenot

?

dv said:

I assume this thread is a fun quiz about Bubblecar.

Rate these as true or false

1/ Car owns a rebec, a zebec and a tenrec.
2/ Car is a dual citizen
3/ In 1987, Car was the runnerup in an Edward Mulhare lookalike contest, being narrowly defeated by Rex Harrison.

1/ F
2/ F
3/ F

Michael V said:

dv said:

I assume this thread is a fun quiz about Bubblecar.

Rate these as true or false

1/ Car owns a rebec, a zebec and a tenrec.
2/ Car is a dual citizen
3/ In 1987, Car was the runnerup in an Edward Mulhare lookalike contest, being narrowly defeated by Rex Harrison.

1/ F
2/ F
3/ F

2 would be true. We know now from parliamentary shenanigans if you are born in the UK unless you take specific action to divest yourself, you remain a citizen.

transition said:

Zarkov said:

What is the name of Bubblecar’s village

fixationvillenot

?

Thanks I’ll get this driver to help me on my way there

AwesomeO said:

Michael V said:

dv said:

I assume this thread is a fun quiz about Bubblecar.

Rate these as true or false

1/ Car owns a rebec, a zebec and a tenrec.
2/ Car is a dual citizen
3/ In 1987, Car was the runnerup in an Edward Mulhare lookalike contest, being narrowly defeated by Rex Harrison.

1/ F
2/ F
3/ F

2 would be true. We know now from parliamentary shenanigans if you are born in the UK unless you take specific action to divest yourself, you remain a citizen.

Hasn’t he given hints his ancestry is Russian

Zarkov said:

AwesomeO said:

Michael V said:

1/ F
2/ F
3/ F

2 would be true. We know now from parliamentary shenanigans if you are born in the UK unless you take specific action to divest yourself, you remain a citizen.

Hasn’t he given hints his ancestry is Russian

From the Ukrainian aristocracy AFAICT.

Zarkov said:

AwesomeO said:

Michael V said:

1/ F
2/ F
3/ F

2 would be true. We know now from parliamentary shenanigans if you are born in the UK unless you take specific action to divest yourself, you remain a citizen.

Hasn’t he given hints his ancestry is Russian

Well yes, Ukraine, but born in the UK.

AwesomeO said:

Zarkov said:

AwesomeO said:

2 would be true. We know now from parliamentary shenanigans if you are born in the UK unless you take specific action to divest yourself, you remain a citizen.

Hasn’t he given hints his ancestry is Russian

Well yes, Ukraine, but born in the UK.

Sleeper agent I bet

AwesomeO said:

Zarkov said:

AwesomeO said:

2 would be true. We know now from parliamentary shenanigans if you are born in the UK unless you take specific action to divest yourself, you remain a citizen.

Hasn’t he given hints his ancestry is Russian

Well yes, Ukraine, but born in the UK.

Mongrel

Ian said:

AwesomeO said:

Zarkov said:

Hasn’t he given hints his ancestry is Russian

Well yes, Ukraine, but born in the UK.

Mongrel

I think that was Atilla the Hut.

I’m bringing a replacement bike for him as well belonged to my grandmother, has a basket front and back and a bottle holder so he can imbibe on the way to the shops

Does Bubblecar still look like a slightly larger version of John Inman with long hair

At a village someone told me a portly gentleman with a pony tail lives here and used to ride a girls bike.
Going to walk around yelling out Bubblecar in the hope he comes out

Zarkov said:

At a village someone told me a portly gentleman with a pony tail lives here and used to ride a girls bike.
Going to walk around yelling out Bubblecar in the hope he comes out

WOW THAT WAS WEIRD AND SCARY

I was outside a cafe and saw a man from the back I thought was Bubblecar
I snuck up, yelled out Bubblecar and took a roll from his plate I haven’t eaten in many hours, he lept up, growled at me and then attacked me.

It was Michael Moore the film maker (why he was here I don’t know) he doesn’t like people taking his food especially dishevelled looking mad man.

Haven’t found car yet, I am beginning to think it isn’t even the right village.

Zarkov said:

Haven’t found car yet, I am beginning to think it isn’t even the right village.

Probably not even the correct planet.

roughbarked said:

Zarkov said:

Haven’t found car yet, I am beginning to think it isn’t even the right village.

Probably not even the correct planet.

I’m going to camp outside the bottle shop and wait, he’s fond of a drink so should turn up in a day or so

Zarkov said:

roughbarked said:

Zarkov said:

Haven’t found car yet, I am beginning to think it isn’t even the right village.

Probably not even the correct planet.

I’m going to camp outside the bottle shop and wait, he’s fond of a drink so should turn up in a day or so

He could be on the wagon this week. You may have a long wait.

AwesomeO said:

Michael V said:

dv said:

I assume this thread is a fun quiz about Bubblecar.

Rate these as true or false

1/ Car owns a rebec, a zebec and a tenrec.
2/ Car is a dual citizen
3/ In 1987, Car was the runnerup in an Edward Mulhare lookalike contest, being narrowly defeated by Rex Harrison.

1/ F
2/ F
3/ F

2 would be true. We know now from parliamentary shenanigans if you are born in the UK unless you take specific action to divest yourself, you remain a citizen.

No, 2/ is false. I’m a British citizen but not an Australian citizen (just a resident) which is why I can’t vote in Oz elections.

roughbarked said:

Zarkov said:

roughbarked said:

Probably not even the correct planet.

I’m going to camp outside the bottle shop and wait, he’s fond of a drink so should turn up in a day or so

He could be on the wagon this week. You may have a long wait.

Bubblecar I’m in town and looking for you, meet me at the bottleshop

Am trying to find an image of a specific car.

I think it was called the Quantum “Cube”.

It was only ever made as a prototype, in Japan, and was literally a large cube made from four sheets of flat plate glass.

Steering was omnidirectional, on tiny wheels.
The engine was hidden underneath the driver. I can’t remember whether the engine was electric or just tiny.

It looked vaguely like this, but much less fancy.

B U B B L E C A R !!!

I’ve been waiting outside the bottleshop all night and half the morining were are you

B U B B L E C A R !!!

I’ve been waiting outside the bottleshop all night and half the morining were are you

Right, I’m off to visit the mens shed to get some pieces of macadamia wood routed.
What is the male equivalent of old boiler?

ruby said:

Right, I’m off to visit the mens shed to get some pieces of macadamia wood routed.
What is the male equivalent of old boiler?

Old cock I’d imagine.

Peak Warming Man said:

ruby said:

Right, I’m off to visit the mens shed to get some pieces of macadamia wood routed.
What is the male equivalent of old boiler?

Old cock I’d imagine.

Old codger

Cymek said:

Peak Warming Man said:

ruby said:

Right, I’m off to visit the mens shed to get some pieces of macadamia wood routed.
What is the male equivalent of old boiler?

Old cock I’d imagine.

Old codger

Possibly “Old Fart”, too?

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Old cock I’d imagine.

Old codger

Possibly “Old Fart”, too?

Yes

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Old cock I’d imagine.

Old codger

Possibly “Old Fart”, too?

Old fart is good.

And if there was a new Brexit referendum, 43 per cent would vote to stay in the EU compared with 35 per cent voting to leave, and 22 per cent either not voting or not knowing how they would vote.

However, if there was a general election, a new poll analysis from YouGov found the May government would be returned with a majority in Parliament.

https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/may-accused-of-brexit-blackmail-after-appealing-for-more-time-20190213-p50xdz.html

…

I wonder if Corbynistas like DV are starting to wonder if the emperor has no clothes if he couldn’t defeat this shambles of a Tory government.

Opps sorry. Zarky do go on…

Gotta say I’ve never seen an ugly aston martin

Witty Rejoinder said:

Opps sorry. Zarky do go on…

Thanks good sir, I’ve moved on from this town, apparently Bubblecar doesn’t live here and the person I though was him was actually Michael Moore on holiday

I met who I thought was Bubblecar and he invited me to his house but then realised he said his name was Bubba Car, left in a hurry after he wanted me to put lotion on my skin and look for something in an old well

1930s Art Deco Era Vehicles

Tau.Neutrino said:

1930s Art Deco Era Vehicles

Thanks. Like the motorcycle.

Finished the book on aesthetics in Engineering. Essentially, beauty is not a consideration at all, and the book actually recommends avoiding it. The purpose of aesthetics in Engineering can be summed up as:

• It must look strong and safe
• Ease of use
• It must appear as if built to high standards of accuracy
• It must look monolithic rather than modular.