YESTERDAY WE BEGAN DISCUSSING R+T’s INAUGURAL road tests in 1951. Various formats were assayed, though by midyear a standard format began to evolve. Here in Part 2, road test A-1-51 (the year’s first American car) was the Studebaker Land Cruiser; F-10-51 (the year’s tenth foreign car) was the Aston Martin DB II, but not just anyone’s DB II.
Image from R+T, May 1951.
Studebaker Land Cruiser. The Studebaker Land Cruiser test had the same format and multiple staffers as the Jaguar’s (with top-speed excitement replaced by probing handling limits of an American car). That’s Mr. B. along a sandy desert trail.
R+T stated, “The Studebaker Land Cruiser is a ‘typical American car’…. with all the qualities that are implied in that phrase. Good points are: Plenty of power, silent, smooth ride, low price [$2280], and effortless driving. Not so good: ‘Women’s steering ratio’ [copy editor Lorraine Keaton and managing editor Dottie Clendenin were yet to be on staff when this tripe was written] (6 turns, lock to lock), considerable roll while cornering and easily faded brakes.”
Image from R+T, December 1951.
Instantly Smitten. International Motors’ Roger Barlow assigned a guy named Phil Hill to help out with the magazine’s testing and photography of the newly arrived Aston Martin coupe. R+T wrote, “No sooner had Phil trundled the car off the floor, Chesebrough in tow, than he began to cast interested, covetous glances at the DB II. During the hour or so spent capturing the car’s image on film, Phil made up his mind: he had to have the car.”
“Casting caution to the wind,” R+T continued, “and declaring that ‘this is the end of my spending money for the next eighteen months,’ Phil made out the papers, signed the bill of sale and stuck his head into the engine—to find out what made it tick.”
Indeed, Phil was that kind of guy, even after he won the Formula I World Driving Championship a decade later.
Phil’s Comments. R+T dropped its earlier anonymous Messrs. to have Hill provide Notes and Comments: “The DB II handles like a dream and is a lot of fun to drive…. I had the time of my life on the way to Reno—blowing off the best Detroit could offer—not only on winding roads, but on the straights.”
Elsewhere in the text, R+T noted, “You get an idea of the car’s ability to get places in a hurry when you glance over the average Phil made on the way to Reno Road Races—84 miles in one hour on the open road.”
“And this was no record attempt,” it continued. “It was fast driving—true—but at no time were driver or passenger conscious of strain. Both relaxed and were able to maintain a well-modulated conversation when they wanted to.”
Don’t try this at home, kids. Phil was a professional.
An Evolving Format. By December 1951, R+T had concentrated a lot of data in a single format. Curiously, there was no explicit listing of 0-60 times (which had appeared in earlier layouts). I suspect Technical Editor John R. Bond assumed that his readers knew how to read a graph.
Missing in this particular data panel was any indication of price. Do you suppose Phil didn’t want anyone to know what 18 months of his spending money might be?
Data Panels to Come. Still to come were artist Bill Dobson’s lovely side-views replacing front-three-quarter sketches. For awhile there were sketches of gearshift gates to show shift patterns. Long-time readers may also recall our country’s (largely abortive) Great National Metric Conversion: We dualled dimensions for a bit. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024