Safe Speed Forums

Folks,

I come from the time of pushrod valves and manually adjusted contact breakers, so today's cars are pretty impressive to me. My guess is that the single best development has either been the OHC or the ECU, but there have been so many changes over the years, from disc braking to chassis and handling.

What do you think has been the single best technical development in the last 50 years?

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

Road Angel! BTW Cooler, have you had your newsletter? There's a new version of it coming out that updates automatically as you drive.

Let's see what else - since the 1970s, in no particular order.

• Central locking
• Heated rear window standard
• Sound systems much improved
• SatNav
• ABS
• Power steering now standard on most cars
• Servo brakes on most cars
• Powerful alternators replace dynamos
• Air conditioning standard on most cars
• 6 speed gearbox many cars
• Alarm systems standard
• Tyres greatly improved since the 70s
• Fuel economy much better
• Heating/ventilation much better
• Auto climate control on high spec cars
• All cars now with locking fuel filler and bonnet (many did not in the 70s)

Add to this list!

Some significant advances:

Metallurgy, permitting engines that don't completely wear out in 50,000 miles, despite running at consistently higher speeds.
Lubricants, ditto
Electronics that permit engines to run at much finer tolerances yielding more power, less wear, better economy and require virtually zero maintenance.
Rack & Pinion steering. (To appreciate this go and drive a MK1 Cortina!)
Disc brakes

But top of my list would be tyres. The capabilities of modern radial tyres are simply amazing compared to what was previously available. Even just in the last 20 years tyres have improved out of all comparison; and yet "like for like" they are probably cheaper. I remember in the mid 19080s a friend of mine was running a modified Sierra XR4i. It had been fitted with a turbo yielding about 200bhp, and had all the running gear professionally upgraded to suit. In the wet it was lethal, simply because the rubber of the day couldn't generate enough grip to support that level of performance. On a damp road it would spin the rear wheels in third gear and negotiating a roundabout or (shock horror) standing water was taking your life in your hands. Meanwhile my last car was a RWD BMW with similar sized tyres and over 230BHP, yet with modern rubber (ok and modern rear suspension) you could lean on it like you'd never believe, wet or dry.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Exactly the decision I came to when I considered choosing only one of the myriad advances over the last 50 years, though another strong contender would be the zero defect methodology pioneered iirc by the Japanese car industry.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

JT,

Cross ply to radial? Yes, that's a big one. My Triumph Vitesse MK11 would spin the wheels in the first three gears. I thought it was kind of cool until I ran it into a lampost. Everyone I knew who had owned a Vitesse had crashed it. Heavy front end and terrifying transverse leaf spring on the back. Add crossplies and you are lucky to get home.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

DM,

Hadn't thought of that. You're right though; I never drive without the road angel. I only have the classic version, but it is dead easy to add sites while driving, the later ones being a bit fiddly.

Yep, got the news letter.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

I'd say disc brakes, ABS or tyres.

There's a lot to be said for a 50p set of points that you can set the gap with the width of a fag packet.

Probably the best thing is crumple zones.
We need them even more now all the latest tech gives the driver a serious false sense of security.

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The Box said "Windows XP or better" ... So I installed Ubuntu

I thought it was only the Mk1 vitesses that were that hairy with the non-rotoflex suspension? The mk2s were supposed to be a lot better behaved but I have only driven a mk1 so I don't know.

Teabelly,

My Mk11 would still tuck the back wheels under, but I don't remember the full spec. Also there was the extra power from the 2 litre engine. From memory I was getting about 18 miles to the gallon, maybe less under a heavy foot! All this in 73, around the time of the oil crisis.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

Good grief! I thought I was doing badly with 25mpg generally with about 30mpg on a long run Don't think it liked the LRP I used to use though. The valves started sticking after using it for a few years. Switched to the milers additive and it was much happier.

Paint!

At least the manufacturers actually paint their products properly nowadays! up untill the mid 80's they didnt bother with the result that the underside of most cars looked like a collander after ten years or so!

Very few of the other "improvements" (appart from TCI and radial tyres) bother me that much! though I admit they are nice to have (provoded they are reliable and cheap to fix if they go wrong)

I recon the "Best" car ever made was probabally the Volvo 244/245 auto with TCI distributer ignition system and the k-jetronic injection system.
After that it all stared going downhill

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Yep. We replaced the sills on a (Longbridge?) MGB and found just bare metal in there. No primer, nothing.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

And then again we could look at the converse ---today ,charging system playing up - not too bad , since all is contained in the alternator --at a price .Yesterday with a dynamo- short field to output , connect up house lamp -lamp lights -tis not the dynamo ,probably the control box - not too pricy. Any one of a stack of lamps light on the dash "that'll be lots of cash to tell you fault ,sir "
And we all remember the problems caused by the dodgy petrol .

Not saying yesterdays cars were better - just simpler --and yes ,bmc did stand for badly made cars .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I suppose that, technically, we shouldn't allow either radial tyres or disc brakes into the reckoning - both these were first introduced more than 50 years ago! Seat belts are older than that too. ABS (at least as we know it) might be a candidate but even then, there were odd mechanical systems 50 years ago. 4 wheel drive (on road cars) might be significant but as a concept, offroaders have had it for ages. Electronic fuel injection (at least in road cars) is about 40 years old so maybe that's a candidate. Turbos have been around for over 50 years too, it surprised me to find out!

Much as I hate to admit it, I think it's going to have to be advances in electro-mechanical technology. Almost every area of the modern car has seen significant improvement in the last 50 years but I think electro-mechanical comonents and systems have been the biggest totally new area in that time. We've got clever automated manual transmissions now with sequential shift and a huge level of integration between various systems on cars that would previously have been completely independent (e.g. brakes, steering, transmission all working together to give unbelieveable levels of dynamic ability to modern cars). Of course, whether or not that's a GOOD thing is more open to debate!

The only other thing (and I'm cheating here) has been the introduction of powerful computer aided design techniques into the creation of new cars. These have lead to huge advances in refinement and crashworthiness by being able to optimise designs to unprecedented levels of accuracy in a fraction of the time it would have taken to build and test them.

4WD with any sort of limited slip diff gives you a rudimentary form of ABS - solid diffs give you a full system, at least right up to the point where you lock all 4 wheels!

Anyway, going back to the original post, the question was about technical developments, not technical innovations, so something that was around 50 years ago can still qualify.

I still say tyres...

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

If you designed a car today with no electronic aids, no air con, no electric windows etc., it would be far more reliable, efficient, cheaper and safe than any similar 50 year old design. To roll my comment about zero defect and Mole's above perhaps the technology applied to the design and manufacture of cars is the best development not any technology in the cars themselves.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I think the greatest developments have been in manufacturing. CNC machines can produce components with sub-micron tolerances cheaply and repeatably, so we now have engines that still don't burn oil after 150K miles and components for ABS, fuel injection etc. are cheap enough to fit to every car. Robotic assembly has allowed bodies to be put together with tight and even shut lines, not like the old days where you had a half inch gap one side and it nothing on the other!



We had to replace the sills on an MGB GT because they had gone completely! There was still some of the outer sills left but the middle and inner sills were gone completely. If it had been a roadster it would have collapsed in the middle.

semitone,

It was that first sign of bubbling paintwork that was so chilling, often around the front wings at the headlamps. You just knew that the whole thing was rotten underneath.

We don't see corrosion like that these days, even on Fiats and Alfas.

C.

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More rules and regulations please! (Not)

duel brake curcits!...
brake servos
halagoen lights
seat belts
...
no
....
50 years ago
... the must have option
....
....

.......
a heater in the car
would you buy a car without a heater!

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code