Rover rides with NASA July 2, 2009
Posted by richard in : Technology , trackbackIT was Rover that introduced the UK to the Pandora’s box of secondary ride quality considerations.
Secondary what? Yes, indeed. Edit the above to insert (non too successfully).
But, there it was. In the 1995 national ad campaign for the Rover 400. Best secondary ride comfort in its sector, didn’t you know.
Rover did bless it up a bit, by headlining it ‘long distance ride comfort’. But you didn’t have to snib that much further to see this mysterious new term mentioned.
What is it? The ability of a car to soak up sharp surface imperfections – you know, high-frequency, low amplitude stuff. Potholes and the like. The noisy, harsh and unpleasant stuff.
As opposed, of course, to primary ride quality. That’s how well a car controls its body motions over bigger road undulations.
Rover did this by using something space-age and cool-sounding: NASA’s official ‘comfort coefficient’ for ride comfort.
Apparently, the Rover 400 had an excellent 2.06 rating. Much better than contemporary Vauxhall Cavaliers, Peugeot 405s, Ford Mondeos and even – get this – traditionally fine-riding motors like the Citroen Xantia and Renault Laguna.
That was in the small print, of course. Communicating this was the canny ‘land speed record’ ad campaign. And, at the time, while few really understood what it was on about, they still remembered it.
If they also remembered something about space, NASA, ride and Rover, then it was job done. Let’s just hope the old HH-R didn’t disappoint too many who were expecting a Rolls-Royce when they got to showrooms.
Because there, they’d discover the interesting revelation about primary ride. That the Cavalier beat it – by its own NASA-sanctioned coefficient, no less. Harsh and knobbly the old Cav 3 may have been (I know – my dad had one), but it couldn’t half control its body motions well.
And the other Rover-beater? The Citroen Xantia.
Whoosh.
A NASA rocket? No, theories about wallowy hydropneumatic Citroens, flying out the window.
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