A WINGED MOTOR CAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 113, 28 September 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

A WINGED MOTOR CAR.

THE LATEST INVENTION.' The latest sensation in land and air locomotion is the winged motor car. It has climbed up the steep grades of Clamart, shot down the valley of the Seine, and travelled with its wings all the way from Paris to Lyons. The natives of Joigny, Dijon and Chalon-sur-Saone, and every intermediate town and village, have seen it flit past their fields, their farmhouses, and their village churches, keeping to the road, yet leaving scarcely a trace of its wheels, stirring up the-air into whirlwinds, and causing no dust cloud behind.

The new wonder is due to the combined efforts of the inventors, MM. Filippi and Nivert. and their friends. MM. Bertrand de Lesseps, Archdeacon. Stevens and Georges Hoentschel, and its remarkable performance is described for us by M. Franz Beichel in the Figaro. The idea of a winged motor car has been worked up from the conception of a motor sleigh. It is well known that sleighs cannot be propelled in the same way as motor cars, because they have no wheels. An attempt was made a few years ago, under the auspices of the Touring Club of France, to drive a motor sleigh by means of an aeroplane propeller. The. experiment succeeded fairly well, the only drawback being that the propeller's efficiency did not go beyond 1200 revolutions per minute. M. de Lesseps, who was making these experiments, both in Franco and Sweden, then became acquainted with M. Filippi, who had invented a new kind of propeller blade, which he calls a revolving wing. A correspondent says that he saw these revolving wings some time ago, when they were exhibited, and was shown their peculiar way of working. They resemble the ordinary wooden propellers, with this difference, that the blade is so turned as to create a vacuum that is supposed to bring it tolerably near the perfection of a bird's wing. It's efficiency, at any rate, seems much superior to that of an ordinary straightbladed propeller, and it was a "revolving wing of this kind which M. de Lesseps has fitted to an ordinary racing car.

The car was taken to Clamart the night before the trial, and at sunrise next morning M. Bertrand de Lesseps. with his friend, M. Roux, and his machinist, 's'tciner, got in and prepared to start for Lyons. The ear with its motor propeller and supplies, weights about 13001b. The motor is 40 horse-power, and the propeller can turn at the rate of 2100 revolutions a hiinntc it first test was to climb up a hill with a gradient of "i ner cctii. and more, which it did splendidly, leaving the other wheel-driven ears behind in the race. The start was then made, and the few spectators present cheered as the car, propelled by its revolving wing, darted away over' the roads of Clamart. The winged car continued its journev without any hitch. A despatch was sent from Lvons stating briefly, "Arrived her.' safely." It remains to he seen whether the winged <•■•:■ will suiTM-sed" {lie r,v linary wheeldriven motor c:ir. it has the advantage of not wearing out the tyres of the driving wheels, as there are none, and of being capable of going over roads which would be impossible for ordinary cars.