A NOVEL approach to the motorists' points of view on the post-war automobile was made by the SAE Passenger-Car Body Meetings Committee when four newspaper automobile editors were asked to collate their readers' desires and expectations.
Chairman R. I. Schonitzer of the Committee presented the four editors at one of the most successful sessions of the 1945 War Engineering-Annual Meeting in Detroit. This symposium disclosed that:
The American motoring public has great faith in design prowess of automobile engineers;
Gadget engineering has been largely discounted, and many motorists believe that equal attention to improving functional components would serve them better, and
Safety features - including greater visibility - impress the motorist.
As might have been expected, some prospective buyers of the post-war automobile wrote rather detailed specifications of improvements they' desired, but cautioned against raising the price. Few who wanted air cooling of cars for summer driving realized that refrigeration equipment of this type would be costly, suggesting that “only a nominal increase would meet with favor.”
The editors, on the other hand, realized that some of the desires they reported were in the realm of the unpractical. But the ideas were offered with the hope that passenger-car and accessory engineers of the industry might find some value in them.