I believe the Dart plays a starring role (actually, it's its cousin, the Plymouth Valiant), in Steven Spielberg's directorial debut, Duel (1971). It stars Dennis Weaver, driving said Valiant, being chased by an evil trucker intent on running him off the road. True to its real-world performance, the Valiant/Dart takes a licking in the movie but keeps on ticking. Low performance but highly reliable, based on Chrysler's famous and rugged slant 6. That engine also appeared in the similar (technically) but more sportily styled Plymouth Duster. I remember driving a 1973 Duster in the early 1980s. Having enjoyed Mopar, I bought a new Chrysler product sometime in the 80s. That was a mistake not to be repeated, and I am among the tens of thousands that were lost permanently by American automakers as a result.
Disagree all you like, but the Cimarron was based on the Chevy Cavalier. I know them very well, I was working at a Chevy dealership when it was introduced. The Nova wasn't even in production when the Cimarron came out. The Nova was an X-body car that ceased production in 1979. The Cavalier was a J-body car that was introduced in '82, as was the Cimarron.
The Nova was reintroduced in '85, I'm guessing your cousin's car was an '85 - '88 Nova. This Nova was built as a joint venture between GM and Toyota, and was actually a rebadged Toyota Sprinter. It did resemble the Cavalier/Cimarron, but under the sheetmetal it was a completely different car.
Yes, Curmudgeon, I remember the Pontiac 2000 was the exact same car as the Olds Cutless. Chrysler did the same thing with its Dodge line. But usually it was fairly easy to tall a GM car from a Ford or Chrysler.
Sorry Mr. Jones! I wholeheartedly DISAGREE! The Cadillac CIMARRON was not a rebranded Cavalier. It was as I stated a gussied up CHEVY II NOVA. I know them well because I had an uncle who had one, and a cousin (on the other side of the family) who had a NOVA during that same timeframe. The cars were identical, except for the Caddy's gussied up interior seating, dashboard appointments & exterior chrome.
Cadillac had the Cimarron, which was actually a rebranded Chevy Cavalier. The '82 Cimarron was voted the eighth worst car of the millenium by CarTalk...
That car shape timeline is funny, but it certainly sounds true. Although I remember that the winged look during the 50s was supposed to make people think of rocket ships at least as much as airplanes. This was, after all, the Sputnik era.
Wait. Isn't design about efficiency? Isn't "styling" equal to Decoration? You can borrow my hotglue gun if that's the definition of design. Aerodynamic design is about efficiency. Nature does it by survival. It's the 21st century. On that note: Why do they still build in those HUMPS the length of the car?
Beth: Your comment about the DODGE DART... It was a popular model in the 1960s. So that may be "grandpa's generation" to you. Actually, the DART was a "compact" vehicle, competing w/ the Chevrolet CHEVY II (Nova), Ford Falcon, Mercury Comet, Plymouth Valiant, Buick Special, Oldsmobile F85, & Pontiac Tempest (later GTO & LeMANS). When did all this happen? It started w/ the 1960 model year.
Rob: The current crop of designs harkens back to the 1970s when GM decided to make all their vehicles clones of each other. Remember the midsized Buicks, Chevrolets, Oldsmobiles & Pontiacs. You couldn't tell one from the other, except up close when you saw the brand logo affixed somewhere on the sheetmetal. Even the full-sized Chevrolet Impala shared a complete body design w/ the Pontiac Bonneville. It was the same for the Chevy Monza, the Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile (?) & Ponitac (?). Even the Cadillac brand marketd a model which wasn't much different than the Chevrolet Nova! It's been so long ago that I've forgotten the names of the Olds & Ponty cars in that series. My point: Detroit HAS been down the "clone" road before, and in a BIG TIME way.
We only need to look to racecar builders to make cars lighter and stronger. The technology exists today but the will doesn't. Yes, everyone can not afford a $2M dollar racecar but most of the innovation in production cars "trickled down" from racing. Just ask Honda. There is no reason we can not adapt F1 technology to production cars and with economies of scale make affordable for the masses.
Andrew Morris designed a circuit that could detect a stroke victim's groan and convert the sound into a signal so caregivers would know when help was needed.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
On April 21, NASA launched a novel project, putting into orbit three satellites that employ an off-the-shelf commercial smartphone as the control system.
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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