Alfa Romeo Engineers: Unsung Innovators Behind Today's "Innovations" Part Two of Four

["Auto Legal / New York" <autlegal@domain.elided>]

Part Two: "il fossile' continues:

Air Bags are common today.  Recently, much is being made of "head bags",
"sternum bags", "neck bags", or any other body part that may require
protection.  Alfa Romeo held another patent, this time a concept of Ing.
Filippo Surace of DIPRE STUR, for the "soft sallet", a translation from the
Italian, but you'll have to look up "sallet" in your Funk & Wagnall's.  This
is another 30-year old patent, a development for one of the early NHTSA/NATO
Experimental Safety Vehicle conference.  Here we see the concept of a bag that
drops down from the headliner to protect the face, the clavicle/chin impact,
and prevent hyperextension of the neck due to forward rotation, which can
cause a 3-4" stretch of vertebrae C3-C4 and subsequent spinal cord pinching.
This "new" innovation can be seen in Surace's patent No.3,953,049  dated April
27, 1976,



(The writer laughs that he could go on at great length if he had his original
work product files to review)



But just to give you some food for thought -- or heaven forbid homework,
you'll find a few other "old-new" or "new-old" concepts below.

"Pulseair" - a term used by Subaru and GM for reed valves that introduced air
into the exhaust manifold to provided post-combustion of unburned HC - an
early Alfa Romeo emission control strategy for California.

Inflatable shoulder belt:  recently promoted by TRW.  Care to guess again?
Alfa's patent did not include the pyrotechnic pre-tensioner, only the belt
concept.



Lot's of aero devices are popular today, but this one was on the production
Turbo Giulietta and had only a half dozen parts.  As the vehicle velocity
increased, the air dam (chin "spoiler" sic) lowered itself by a calibrated
spring mechanism and forced the nose down.  Later thrown out as it was found
to cause overheating of the transaxle.  Good idea - wrong application.



Banjo catalytic converter with pellets:  GM copied the patent years later,
with the same disastrous results.  It included the famous thermocouple and red
"slowdown" light.  Anybody out there who might think they know the real
purpose of the "slow down" light?  I'll send you an unusual prize.  Note that
GM did not use such a light.



Exhaust bypass has been talked about for some time.  Alfa Romeo did patent the
concept in the early '70s and it was presented in our 800-page "status report"
prepared for EPA, required to show our efforts in complying with future
standards.  The concept is used today to permit "sound of power" under W.O.T.
applications.  It's actually a great way to tailor the exhaust sound to the
product.



The list of early ideas and patents is quite long.  During the time of the
emissions and safety knee-jerk reactions by the government, most manufacturers
where looking for solutions to politically imposed design requirements.  Alfa
Romeo had a cadre of innovative hardworking designers and engineers who were
bold enough to put forth real solutions to real problems.  The difficulty for
them was to provide real solutions for imagined or undefined problems.  Even
today, most automotive technology is driven by political winds.
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