THIS YEAR’S CARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 894, 11 February 1930, Page 6

THIS YEAR’S CARS

IMPROVED BODYWORK

VALANCES LESS POPULAR

An outstanding feature in 1930 bodywork is the general practice of providing a particularly wide body with sides and doors extending downward outside the frame to within about an inch of the running board, valances being abandoned in many instances.

This scheme has much to commend it on the score of producing a clean outline and no one will regret the passing of the sheet-metal valance, with its easily scratched surface and its tendency to drum or rattle. Deep body, sides and narrow/ windows result in rather a big expanse of barren panelling (or fabric 1 on each side. In order to break up these surfaces a belt or plaque is often used below the windows, picked out in a contrasting colour. Two-tone and three-tone colour schemes, incidentally, are very popular. Another form of decoration which has been introduced consists of beading which has been chromium plated and is therefore untarnishable, and which may be used to emphasise a waistline, a scuttle joint or some similar line of demarcation.

The general adoption of body sides dropping downward outside the frame has left the designer free to employ wider bodies than heretofore, built well out over the rear wings, so making it easier to accommodate three on a rear seat.

In sports saloon bodywork several makers _ go a step further by discarding running boards, providing merely a small step beneath each door. An extremely neat and lean “greyhound” effect can be obtained if an undershield is used, curved upward at each side to meet the body in a smooth contour. Smooth external surfaces are, indeed, a general feature; for example, the front dubirons are enclosed by a curved api-on of sheet metal, swept round under the radiator, and continued by the valances of the wings. The same idea is noticeable at the rear end where curved fairing is employed to enclose the tank.