Tailfins and chrome are gone
Experimental cars are now being equipped with
excessive padding to add to the safety of fromt seat
passengers.
UNLstude
to start fil
A group of students
interested in film-ma king is
attempting to organize a
cooperative venture in order to
provide equipment and
assistance to amateur movie
makers on the Lincoln campus,
according to Dan Ladely.
The group is currently
holding weekly meetings at
7:30 Tuesday evenings in the
Nebraska Union.
Ladely said the aim of the
group is to raise $10,000 to
$ 1 5,000 to purchase
equipment for people to work
m Super 8 or 16 millimeter
nts attempt
m co-op
film. Once the equipment is
purchased and workshops are
being held, a grant from an
organization or foundation will
be possible, he said.
The equipment would be
made available to all interested
people on an equal sharing
basis.
The long-range aspiration of
the group is that the University
will establish a major in film.
Ladely said the cooperative
would bring people together to
teach each other and possibly
bring in professional film
people to work with the group.
NEBRASKA
UNION
ORANGE
BOWL TRIP
i..ii..ii.i.lg ""S. mm
u
1 1
4
29250 each for
faculty, staff end
married students,
5NITES LODGING
ROUND TRIP JET TRANSPOft I A 3 IUN
GAME TICKET
PARADE TICKET
INSURANCE
BUS TRANSPORTATION
BAGGAGE TRANSFERS
December 30, 1971 to
January 4, 1972
Deadline: noon Dec. 17, 1971
Reservations ore on a first come first-served basts
with the totat amount paid in full. Trip is open to
students, faculty and staff and their immediate
families only.
SIGN UP IN ROOM 123, NEBRASKA
UNION PROGRAM OFFICE
auto design loses its romance
by James C. Jones
Newsweek Feature Service
DETROIT-'it used to be fun to design
cars," says Elwood Engel, styling chief at the
Chrysler Corp., "but it's not fun anymore. The
romance of auto design has lost a little of its
color."
What has Engel and many of Detroit's other
styling specialists distressed about the state of
their art is a dramatic shift of priorities in the
automotive industry. Where once looks were
vital in a car and the flamboyant stylists were
given free rein to create everything from tailfins
to sweeping designs of chrome now safety and
pollution control are the designers' primary
consideratons.
AND IN TERMS of both cost and
complexity, meeting the new standards makes
coming up with flashy new cosmetic
improvements seem like a few hour's fooling
with Tinker Toys.
There is no longer the time or the money to
allow designers to exercise their creative whims;
General Motors Corp., for instance, now makes
major exterior model changes in its cars only
once every six years.
"There is more work for us on the 1974 and
1975 models, which we're now designing, than
we've ever had in the past," says Eugene
Bordinat Jr., Ford's chief stylist. "Even if we
made no changes for the sake of appearance in
the next year or two, we'd still have more to do
in designing."
AS SOON AS one safety or emission
standard is met, dozens more pop up. The
current schedule already lists nearly SO such
standards imposed by the Federal Department
of Transportation. And another 60 are under
consideration.
In the past, says Ford's Bordinat, most
styling alterations were "discretionary changes.
Now 90 per cent of all we do is mandatory. We
are spending 25 per cent more for design per
year now and it could go to 100 percent more
a year."
Just for example, take the new
energy-absorbing bumper that Washington has
decreed must be on every 1973 car. "Tinkering
with a bumper system is like knocking down
the first domino in a line," says Bordinat. "One
action touches off another which launches
another. It's a chain reaction."
THE NEW BUMPERS will add about 60
pounds to the weight of each car which means
that engineers will have to come up with new
suspension and brake systems and that tire
companies will have to devise more rugged tires.
Headlights will have to be relocated and grills
will have to be changed in order to feed more
air to the radiator.
And bumpers are but one item due for
upgrading. Within the next few years, cars will
probably have to be able to withstand
30-mile-an-hour collisions without fuel leakage,
resist all but minimal interior damage in a
30-m.p.h. side impact and accommodate all the
complex gear that will be necessary to meet
strict emission standards.
According to Chrysler vice president Alan G.
Loofbourrow, the weight of all this new
equipment "could by 1976 increase the weight
of our Plymouth Fury by 427 pounds."
And it is certain to decrease the heft of the
consumer's pocketbook. Most reliable estimates
place the cost of the cars of the mid-'70s at
about 600 to $ 1 .000 above today's prices.
WHAT THOSE CARS will look like is a
matter of some confusion because in several
instances one safety demand conflicts with
another.
For example, because both Washington and
Detroit want to move toward greater forward
vision, designers are experimenting with thinner
front-roof pillars, but another standard
demands increased roof strength in a rollover,
which means thicker pillars.
One way out of the contradiction might be
to strengthen the roof itself with additional
steel, while also installing rollbars. Of course,
that solution would mean the end of stylish
two-door hardtop models, which can't
accommodate rollbars.
Another possibility is to install windows that
won't roll down. "The day is coming when you
won't be able to drop the glass," says G.M.
styling vice president William L. Mitchell. Rigid
glass, he notes, "will help beef up the
structure" in a rollover and he adds that if
windows no longer must be housed in door
panels "the doors can be slimmed down, and
that cuts down on weight."
LAUDABLE THOUGH they may be, the
new safety and emission standards have taken
some of the pizazz out of the stylist's job. In
fact, the whole concept of the auto stylist as
ingenious, creative and flashy seems to be dying
out. In most companies, they're not even called
stylists any more. Now they have adopted the
more mundane-but more practical-title of
"stylist-engineers."
"Oh well, I guess everything's a compromise,
anyway," says Richard Teague, styling boss at
American Motors. "I found that out when I
didn't marry Marilyn Monroe."
Youih caucus.
Continued from page 1.
60-point program of the National Black
Congressional Caucus.
Speakers at the conference included state
legislator Julian Bond of Georgia, Rep. Bella
Abzug of New York, former New York
Congressman Allard Lowenstein and the Rev.
Jesse Jackson.
Sif COLSTON'S 66
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7
Meat team
places fourth
The University of Nebraska
College of Argriculture meat
judging team placed fourth in
competion with 1 8 other teams
at the National Meats Judging
Contest held in Madison, Wise.,
this week.
In addition to their fourth
overall placing, the NU team
placed second in lamb judging,
fourth iii beef judging and
sixth in beef grading.
Several team members also
placed high, in individual
scoring. Vic Knutson of
Wilsonville was fourth high
individual in overall platings;
Phyllis Bourn of Lexington was
second in iamb judging; Dean
Batie, also of Lexington, was
fifth high individual and was
fifth in beef judging.
PAGE 14
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1971