One of my frequent hammerpoints:
Inventions wait for materials and methods.
The latest clip from the Soviet auto podcaster illustrates what Edmund Berkeley was describing in 1957. Soviet engineers were properly trained with experience and teamwork, and therefore had passion and creativity. They were given the resources to act on their creativity, and were rewarded and honored for success.
The van also illustrates how passion can break the basic rule of invention. It was designed in 1963 by one team of engineers and stylists competing to make a new mid-size van. The styling was clumsy** but no worse than others at the time. The engineering failed.
The design team in Severodonetsk was working at a newly established chemical research center specializing in fiberglass. They were determined to make fiberglass work for a mid-size van. In the process they sacrificed everything else that makes a van worth using. To avoid overstressing the structure they moved the engine into the middle of the body where it obstructed the passenger and cargo area. They also added a trunk at the rear because fiberglass without metal framing can’t support a big opening for a rear door. The trunk and fins added unnecessary weight and length, and made rear loading impossible. VW’s rear-engine microbus also lacked rear loading, but partly made up for it with an open central and front area.
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Ideas are not inventions.
An idea may be around for hundreds of years before it can be turned into a product. The Field-Effect Transistor was first imagined in 1840 and patented exactly in 1927, but it had to wait until 1960 when metallurgy and manufacturing could control microscopic dimensions of semiconductor materials.
The fiberglass minivan shows the less common OPPOSITE mistake. You won’t get a product if you start with a determination to use ONE material or ONE method. Fiberglass bodies are suitable for light sports cars but not for cargo vans. Even after the purpose-spoiling compromises, the body failed during testing.
AMC made an even worse mistake in 1974 when they designed the Pacer around a new untried Wankel engine that was ALLEGEDLY being developed by GM. They shouldn’t have trusted GM, and they shouldn’t have designed a car around a new method that had no advantages. Wankel engines were intrinsically short-lived and thirsty, both contrary to the Nash/AMC soul. When GM predictably pulled the rug, AMC scrambled to reshape the passenger compartment for their own reliable economical six. The Pacer lost two of its intended selling points: Innovative Disruption and roomy interior.
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** Soviet attempts to follow US styling trends were usually absurd. The van looks like an Econoline with a ’59 Ford tacked onto the front and a Comet tacked onto the back, plus a ’59 Buick in between. The Chaika limousine was equally jumbled, Packard on the front, Chrysler in the middle and Ford on the back. When Russian designers followed Euro trends the result was much more harmonious and ‘organic’.
Polistra's Mill 