|
Citroën Traction Avant
The Citroën Traction Avant () is the world's first mass-produced, semi-monocoque bodied, front-wheel drive car. A range of mostly four-door saloon (automobile), saloons and executive cars, as well as longer wheelbased ''"Commerciale"'', and three row seating ''"Familiale"'' models, were produced with four- and six-cylinder engines, by French carmaker Citroën from 1934 to 1957. With some 760,000 units built, the Traction Avants were the first front-wheel drives made in such (six-figure) quantity. Whilst front-wheel drive and four-wheel independent suspension had been established in production cars by Auto Union, and subsequently by others a few years prior – the Traction Avant pioneered integrating these into a mass-production car with a crash resistant, largely unitary, monocoque body. Additionally, the car was also an early adopter of Rack and pinion#Steering, rack and pinion steering. Although the car's name ("Traction Avant" literally means "front traction") emphasized its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hatchback
A hatchback is a car body style, car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to the main interior of the car as a cargo area rather than just to a separated trunk. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second-row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume. While early examples of the body configuration can be traced to the 1930s, the Merriam-Webster dictionary dates the term itself to 1970. The hatchback body style has been marketed worldwide on cars ranging in size from supermini car, superminis to small family cars, as well as executive cars and some sports cars. They are a primary component of sport utility vehicles. Characteristics The distinguishing feature of a hatchback is a rear door that opens upwards and is hinged at roof level (as opposed to the boot/trunk lid of a sedan (car), saloon/sedan, which is hinged below the rear window). Most hatchbacks use a Three-box styling#, two-box design bod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vehicle Frame
A vehicle frame, also historically known as its ''chassis'', is the main supporting structure of a motor vehicle to which all other components are attached, comparable to the skeleton of an organism. Until the 1930s, virtually every car had a structural frame separate from its body, known as ''body-on-frame'' construction. Both mass production of completed vehicles by a manufacturer using this method, epitomized by the Ford Model T, and supply of rolling chassis to coachbuilders for both mass production (as by Fisher Body in the United States) and to smaller firms (such as Hooper (coachbuilder), Hooper) for bespoke bodies and interiors was practiced. By the 1960s, unibody construction in passenger cars had become common, and the trend towards building unibody passenger cars continued over the ensuing decades. Nearly all trucks, buses, and most Pickup truck, pickups continue to use a separate frame as their chassis. Functions The main functions of a frame in a motor vehicle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rack And Pinion
rack and pinion is a type of linear actuator that comprises a circular gear (the '' pinion'') engaging a linear gear (the ''rack''). Together, they convert between rotational motion and linear motion: rotating the pinion causes the rack to be driven in a line. Conversely, moving the rack linearly will cause the pinion to rotate. The rack and pinion mechanism is used in rack railways, where the pinion mounted on a locomotive or a railroad car engages a rack usually placed between the rails, and helps to move the train up a steep gradient. It is also used in arbor presses and drill presses, where the pinion is connected to a lever and displaces a vertical rack (the ram). In pipelines and other industrial piping systems, a rack displaced by a linear actuator turns a pinion to open or close a valve. Stairlifts, lock gates, electric gates, and the mechanical steering mechanism of cars are other notable applications. The term "rack and pinion" may be used also when the rac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auto Union
Auto Union AG was an amalgamation of four German automobile manufacturers, founded in 1932 and established in 1936 in Chemnitz, Saxony. It is the immediate predecessor of Audi as it is known today. As well as acting as an umbrella firm for its four constituent brands (Audi, Horch, DKW, Wanderer (car), Wanderer), Auto Union is widely known for its racing team (Auto Union Rennabteilung, based at Horch works in Zwickau/Saxony). The Silver Arrows of the two German teams (Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union) dominated not only GP car racing from 1934 onwards but set records that would take decades to beat, such as the fastest speed ever attained on a public road (at 432.7 km/h (268.9 mph), a record lasting until 2017. After being reduced to near ruin in the aftermath of World War II, Auto Union was re-founded in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, in 1949, ultimately evolving into the modern day Audi company following its takeover by Volkswagen in 1964 and later merger with NSU Motorenwerke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independent Suspension
Independent suspension is any automobile suspension system that allows each wheel on the same axle to move vertically (i.e. reacting to a bump on the road) independently of the others. This is contrasted with a beam axle or deDion axle system in which the wheels are linked. "Independent" refers to the motion or path of movement of the wheels or suspension. It is common for the left and right sides of the suspension to be connected with anti-roll bars or other such mechanisms. The anti-roll bar ties the left and right suspension spring rates together but does not tie their motion together. Most modern vehicles have independent front suspension (IFS). Many vehicles also have an independent rear suspension (IRS). IRS, as the name implies, has the rear wheels independently sprung. A fully independent suspension has an independent suspension on all wheels. Some early independent systems used swing axles, but modern systems use Chapman or MacPherson struts, trailing arms, multilink, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executive Car
Executive car is a British term for a large car, and is considered equivalent to the European E-segment and American full-size classifications. Executive cars are larger than compact executive cars (and the non-luxury equivalent mid-size cars), but smaller than luxury saloons / full-size luxury sedans. The term has also been adopted by Euro NCAP, a European organization founded to test car safety. Background The term was coined in the 1960s to describe cars targeted at successful professionals and middle-to-senior managers. It was used by businesses as an incentive for employees in senior roles and to exploit Britain and Europe's tax schemes as a company-owned vehicle. Early executive cars typically offered engines with displacements of , compared with for an equivalent sized—but less luxurious—"large family car". Prior to the 1990s, executive cars were typically sedans; however, in recent years, they have also been produced in other body styles, such as estates (s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saloon (automobile)
A sedan (American English) or saloon (British English) is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with separate compartments for an engine, passengers, and cargo. The first recorded use of ''sedan'' in reference to an automobile body occurred in 1912. The name derives from the 17th-century litter known as a sedan chair, a one-person enclosed box with windows and carried by porters. Variations of the sedan style include the close-coupled sedan, club sedan, convertible sedan, fastback sedan, hardtop sedan, notchback sedan, and sedanet. Definition A sedan () is a car with a closed body (i.e., a fixed metal roof) with the engine, passengers, and cargo in separate compartments. This broad definition does not differentiate sedans from various other car body styles. Still, in practice, the typical characteristics of sedans are: * a B-pillar (between the front and rear windows) that supports the roof; * two rows of seats; * a three-box design with the engine at the front and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Front-wheel Drive
Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of internal combustion engine, engine and transmission (mechanics), transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel-drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longitudinal engine arrangement generally found in automobile layout#Rear wheel drive layouts, rear-wheel-drive and four-wheel drive, four-wheel-drive vehicles. Location of engine and transmission By far the most common layout for a front-wheel-drive car is with the engine and transmission at the front of the car, mounted transversely. Other layouts of front-wheel drive that have been occasionally produced are a front-engine mounted longitudinally, a mid-engine layout and a rear-engine layout. History Prior to 1900 Experiments with front-wheel-drive cars date to the early days of the automobile. The world's first self-propelled vehicle, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's 1769/1770 Nicola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monocoque
Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, a true monocoque carries both tensile and compressive forces within the skin and can be recognised by the absence of a load-carrying internal frame. Few metal aircraft other than those with milled skins can strictly be regarded as pure monocoques, as they use a metal shell or sheeting reinforced with frames riveted to the skin, but most wooden aircraft are described as monocoques, even though they also incorporate frames. By contrast, a semi-monocoque is a hybrid combining a tensile stressed skin and a compressive structure made up of longerons and ribs or frames. Other semi-monocoques, not to be confused with true monocoques, include vehicle unibodies, which tend to be composites, and inflatable shells or balloon tanks, both of whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
André Lefèbvre
André Lefèbvre (19 August 1894 – 4 May 1964) was a French automobile engineer. André René Lefèbvre was born in Louvres, France (North of Paris, Val d'Oise). He began his career as an aviation engineer working for Voisin, then later for Renault and Citroën. He was also a racing driver and racing car designer. After studying at Supaéro, he began to work for Gabriel Voisin in March 1916. Voisin placed Lefebvre in charge of his Laboratoire where he worked, until the end of World War I, on aviation projects and then automobiles. He is particularly noted for creating the Voisin C6 Laboratoire, which was a racing car prepared for the 1923 French Grand Prix. When Voisin ran into business problems in 1931, Lefèbvre was recommended to Louis Renault. Renault was persuaded to recruit Lefèbvre by François Lehideux, himself a senior executive within the company (who was also married to the daughter of Renault's brother). Lefèbvre remained with Renault only until 1933, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
