Angles for Automotive Design - Guidelines

[AeroMcAeroFace]

Anyone know why supercars always have hydraulic nose lifts for speed bumps? But air suspension is all that is available for consumers to fit to their own cars?

[freebeard]

The illustration doesn't support the claim. The door cut-lines and steering wheel align. The wheelbase has been extended. Only the base of the windshield moved forward.

I can't find a reference but IIRC the Chrysler Airflow was the original cab forward design. The rear seat moved forward so you weren't sitting on top of the rear axle.

[Hersbird]

I can't find the source, but doing one of the more recient Chrysler minivan redesigns they built a full adjustable "cabin" for the front seats. They could move everything around and then brought in 100s of regular drivers to position it where they thought it was most comfortable to both drive and ingress/egress. Supposedly the average was within a few centimeters of the original 1984 van. So either that's what people got used to, or they just nailed it in 1984.

[aerohead]

I believe they also moved the engine over the front axle as well, as part of the 'Boulevard Ride.'

[freebeard]

My Dasher/Audi 80 scoffs at engine over axle.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by aerohead

I believe they also moved the engine over the front axle as well, as part of the 'Boulevard Ride.'

Interesting, never heard that before.

I did find this.

What could have been: Chrysler originally intended the LH platform as front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/202...ll-wheel-drive

Generally, carmakers design their mass-market automobile platforms as front-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive, or, if they're feeling fancy, with all-wheel drive as an option to either architecture. Generally, carmakers do not design platforms to accommodate all three driveline configurations, but that appears to be just what Chrysler's engineering teams did when developing the "cab-forward" LH platform of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Cutaway of a 1993 Dodge Intrepid. FCA Media image.

"The geometry is exactly the same for the suspension, and the packaging was derived from the Eagle Premiere," Bob Sheaves told Allpar. "All of the suspension and drivetrain mules were Premiers also."

According to John Sanderson, who worked at both AMC and Chrysler during that time, Chrysler was able to save millions just by reusing the Premier's hard points while developing the new car..............

That large sedan then became the LH platform, which came out of the same Brampton assembly plant in Ontario that produced the Premier. Starting in 1993, the LH underpinned a number of Chrysler products, among them the Eagle Vision, the Chrysler Concorde/New Yorker/LHS, the Dodge Intrepid, and later, the Chrysler 300M - all of them marketed by Chrysler as the "cab-forward" cars. As pointed out on the 300M Club's website, contemporary journalists joked that the platform's LH designation stood for "last hope," and indeed, much of the company's non-truck/Jeep/minivan fortunes rested on the LH cars.

The production LH platform, which lasted 11 years and two generations, was slated for a third iteration, but the DaimlerChrysler merger nixed any further development on the LH in favor of the rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive LX platform.

[aerohead]

My Handbook's section on driver vision was from 1985 and under revision as of 1986 publication.
All they provided was the side elevation and plan-view eyellipse centroids from the human factors statistical values. Class-A & B vehicles.
With seat-slide, torso, and neck articulation range of motion, those centroids were supposed to give the designer enough data from which to create viable, critical sightlines to all targets.
No additional insights.

[kach22i]

Okay, now I'm a little miffed.

I've done my redesign with the suggested angles in mind and preserved much of the look of my design, but it's started to look conventional as it follows conventional guidelines.

Then today I see this vehicle that completely breaks these guidelines, and looks gloriously cab-forward but also dangerous.

I say dangerous because I once saw an old lady flip her Pontiac Trans-Van upside down after running into a medium separating on coming traffic. She took the turn too wide and too fast and hit the barrier, and I am convinced this was a result of the unusual distance of driver's head to windshield - giving the vehicle a driving from the rear seat feeling.

Here is the vehicle in question.

Canoo Opens Waitlist for World’s First Membership-Only Vehicle
https://www.press.canoo.com/press-re...p-only-vehicle



https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/24/ca...ctric-vehicle/

Kranz says it was also made with autonomy in mind........

https://observer.com/2020/08/electri...e-merger-spac/


Did they get around the 26-27 degree upper cone of vision rule because they made the roof transparent?

Did they not worry about the driving from the rear seat feeling and possible driver disorientation because it's most likely to be self-driving autonomous?

I like where I've taken my own design and think it's the better for it with the small changes I've made.

However when these "tech" companies say they want a vehicle that looks like it's been designed by a cell phone or watch company and not a car company, just what are the consequences?

Will the result be so impracticable as to be not allowed on public roads?

Did they simply just fired anyone who rocked the boat and said; hey wait a minute that isn't going to work because the driver has to be able to see traffic lights change colors?

What do you guys think?

Somebody else's problem, ignore the idiocy?

Mind you I might be more forgiving if the roof line at least tapered a little for aerodynamics.

Don't get me started on the leg room and operation of floor pedals, not going to matter as I don't think they put a suspension in it, just too car-like.

[freebeard]

I've done my redesign with the suggested angles in mind and preserved much of the look of my design, but it's started to look conventional as it follows conventional guidelines.

Then today I see this vehicle that completely breaks these guidelines, and looks gloriously cab-forward but also dangerous.

I say dangerous because I once saw an old lady flip her Pontiac Trans-Van upside down after running into a medium separating on coming traffic.

To quote the Beatles "We'd all love to see the plan."

Did you talk to the old lady? Was she even looking outside the car?

The problem with the distance to screen is the ever-widening A-pillar as they recede. Kanoo solve it with their transparent A-pillar.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Did you talk to the old lady? Was she even looking outside the car?

I had actual eye contact with her as it unfolded.

She was making a right hand turn onto Orchard Lake Road, I was in the long line of cars waiting for the light to change and in the left lane, two lanes of traffic each side of the road.

If the concrete curb barrier wasn't there she would have T-boned one of the cars in the line but at an angle, about two cars up from me contact was made.

The look on her face was;

1. I gotta get there yesterday

2. Oh shat I'm going fast......... where am I?

3. I didn't just hit the curb, what was that?

4. How come the van is on two wheels?

5. I cannot be at 45 degrees..........no way in heck

6. How come I'm upside down sliding down the road?

All in a matter of seconds, like a movie in slow motion, I still remember it 35 years later.

.................................................. .............


One of the intimate driver to car relationships in my old Porsche 911 is that one can reach out and touch most of the windshield, it's closer than most to the driver's eyes/head.

People talk about getting in the car, buckling in, putting their hands on the steering wheel and feeling the cockpit enclose upon them, and becoming one with the machine.

It's like one of those far-field and near-field zoom movie lenses in action.

Counter to this is a nightmare I once had of attempting to drive a car from the back seat, I'm pretty sure that I was naked too.