#1 ; Automotive Technology Milestone

For the last centennial warp time there is hardly any new breakthrough in technology for car industry. Initiated by internal combustion inventions during the end of 19^th century, there were all kind of prime moving engines were born and still conceptually the same as we are driving today. Following the steam there were petrol and diesel engine inventions as the primary driving motor. Through out the centennial of car industry, the “booming” has merely due to ; assembling line production initiated by Henry Ford, new metallurgical advances and recently computer controlled engine management.

In terms of specific thermodynamics efficiency both type of engines are still lingering below 40% of energy conversion rate. That is 60% of energy is wasted to mostly heat, friction and therefore losses. Diesel engine scores more for efficiency but only marginally. Hydrogen fuel is actually still in its infancy, even today it is being regarded as unpractical for mass production. What has revolutionized mass production though is the way Japanese manufacturer implement continuous improvement. A philosophical approach of production cycles invented by an American engineer (DR. Demming's statistical process control (SPC)) who sadly largely ignored by its own people.

The Jap further shoehorned it into “zero” inventory level, a Toyota’s Just In Time production which coincidentally bring Toyota as now No. 1 car manufacturing. Thanks to their most popular the subcompact early generation of Corollas. Furthermore they emulate everything out of the invention encyclopedia, with passionate details by the help of even simple chart utilization to make continuous improvements.

Passionate drive is what distinguishes those great rare cars to the daily driven cars. German Teutonic's engineering excellencies, innovative powerful engine design possessed by the Italian, and beautiful balanced chassis to the “level of art” by French car designers. This artificial innovative engineering has brought about today bewildering car’s choices. As the reflection of these feats we have a few famous brands. Merc, Bimmer, Porche and Audi are the Teutonic perceived images. Ferrari is a well known horse prancing from Italy’s own flair, speed demon yet road hugging sport cars. So is Lambo to a lesser degree and Alfa to another extend. Whilst the French engineers contribute their art heritage to the inception of suspension’s aristocracy, whereby a car’s handling would not always sacrifice the ride.

There are many ways to achieve a striking balance between the ride and handling. German cars are known for firm ride to get its balanced composure. The Italian cars being well a sport-cars are firmer to get its equilibrium. Where the French cars never pretend to be high performer vehicles, yet the majority have beautiful balanced composure.

With the advent of computer controlled dampening system, composure is easily maintained. But that is too obvious! Citroen invented an ingenuous “Hydropneumatic Suspension” in early 1950s. That is in the era where a simple calculator required a huge house to accommodate its computing machinery.

The suspension is a highly sophisticated system with two stages of dampening using both Nitrogen and Mineral Fluid, it enable a balanced height level on its shared (one imaginary) axial wheels. And thus, the suspension could manage to have equal load on each wheel. This translates to superb road holding despite of a rough terrain on even the skinniest tires. Any road bumpiness on the wheel due to irregularities or pot holed road is fully absorbed, since all impacts are never transmitted beyond the suspension system. Hence an eerie flying carpet ride sensation, the ride that is truly unique to Citroen marquee.

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