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Show Post -War Autos Will Be Better, but Not 'Fantastic' Those fantastic dreams of teardrop, tear-drop, rear-engine cars made of "super" "su-per" materials vith curved glass tops and plastic bodies, belong to the next decade. That's the opinion of Delmar G. Roos, a vice president of Willys-Overland Motors. Roos, who is credited with designing design-ing the hard-hitting Jeep, cited these points as an "engineer's approach" to post-war automobile design: (1) There will be a demand for more efficient vehicles at lower initial ini-tial cost. This will mean lighter cars, but not necessarily smaller. (2) Radical changes will be slow in coming. (3) Auto maniuacturers are not willing to gamble their reputation on "futuristic" models which can't meet the hard test of public use. (4) Plastic bodies and curved glass surfaces, in their present form, are unsatisfactory; the bodies have none of the advantages of steel, while the plastic glass as now developed de-veloped presents a dangerous handicap han-dicap to clear vision. ! (5) The next great mechanical advance ad-vance in the industry will probably be the perfection of semi-automatic and automatic transmissions in a simple and inexpensive form. However, How-ever, it is not expected to entirely replace the conventional hand shifl j system for several years. Comfort of Limousines. |