cost? Adam was here to find out and, because of the urgency, had authority to make decisions.
He took back control from the car's computer and allowed the speed to fall off to 20 mph. Then, twice more, at differing rates of acceleration he took it up to 80. Each time, both the vibration and the point at which it occurred were identical.
'There's a difference in sheet metal on this car.' Adam remembered that the Orion he was driving was an early prototype, handmade - as were all prototypes so far - because assembly line manufacture had not yet started.
'Makes no difference to the effect,' Ian Jameson declared flatly. 'We've had an exact Orion out here, another on the dynamometer. They all do it.
Same speed, same NVH.'
'It feels like a woman having an orgasm,' Brett said. 'Sounds like it, too.' He asked the engineer, 'Does it do any harm?'
'As far as we can tell, no.'
'Then it seems a shame to take it out.'
Adam snapped, 'For Christ's sake, cut the stupidity! Of course we have to take it out! If it were an appearance problem, you wouldn't be so goddamn smug.'
'Well, well,' Brett said. 'Something else appears to be vibrating.'
They had left the fast track. Abruptly, Adam braked the car, skidding so that all three were thrown forward against their straps. He turned onto a grass shoulder. As the car stopped, he unbuckled, then got out and lit a cigarette. The others followed.
Outside the car, Adam shivered slightly. The air was briskly cool, fall leaves were blowing in a gusty wind, and the sun, which had been out earlier, had disappeared behind an overcast of gray nimbostratus. Through trees, he could see a lake, its surface ruffled bleakly.
Adam pondered the decision he had to make. He was aware it was a tough one for which he would be blamed - justly or unjustly - if it went wrong.
Ian Jameson broke the uncomfortable silence. 'We're satisfied that the effect is induced by tire and road surfaces when one or the other becomes in phase with body harmonics, so the vibration is natural body frequency.'
In other words, Adam realized, there was no structural defect in the car.
He asked, 'Can the vibration be overcome?'
'Yes,' Jameson said. 'We're sure of that, also that you can go one of two ways. Either redesign the cowl side structure and underbody torque boxes' - he filled in engineering details or add biases and reinforcement.'
'Hey!' Brett was instantly alert. 'That first one means exterior body changes. Right?'
'Right,' the engineer acknowledged. 'They'd be needed at the lower body side near the front door cut and rocker panel areas.'
Brett looked gloomy, as well he might, Adam thought. It would require a crash redesign and testing program at a time when everyone believed the Orion design was fixed and final. He queried, 'And the add- ons?'
'We've experimented, and there'd be two pieces - a front floor reinforcement and a brace under the instrument panel.' The engineer described the brace which would be out of sight, extending from the cowl side structure on one side, to the steering column, thence to the cowl on the opposite side.
Adam asked the critical question. 'Cost?'
'You won't like it.' The engineer hesitated, knowing the reaction his next words would produce. 'About five dollars.'
Adam groaned. 'God Almighty!'
He was faced with a frustrating choice. Whichever route they went would be negative and costly. The engineer's first alternative - redesign - would be less expensive, costing probably half a million to a million dollars in retooling. But it would create delays, and the Orion's introduction would be put off three to six months which, in itself, could be disastrous for many reasons.
On the other hand, on a million cars, cost of the two add-ons - the floor reinforcement and brace - would be five million dollars, and it was expected that many more Orions than a million would be built and sold. Millions of dollars to be added to production expense, to say nothing of lost profit, and all for an item wholly negative! In auto construction, five dollars was a major sum, and auto manufacturers thought normally in pennies, shaving two cents here, a nickel there, necessary because of the immense total numbers involved. Adam said in deep disgust, 'Goddam!'
He glanced at Brett. The designer said, 'I guess it isn't funny.'
Adam's outburst in the car was not the first clash they had had since the Orion project started. Sometimes it had been Brett who flared up. But through everything so far they had managed to remain friends. It was as well, because there was a new project ahead of them, at the moment codenamed Farstar.
Ian Jameson announced, 'If you want to drive over to the lab, we've a car with the add-ons for you to see.'
Adam nodded sourly. 'Let's get on with it.'
Brett DeLosanto looked upward incredulously. 'You mean that hunk of scrap, and the other, 'll cost five bucks!'
He was staring at a steel strip running across the underside of an Orion, and secured by bolts.
Adam Trenton, Brett, and Ian Jameson were inspecting the proposed floor reinforcement from an inspection area beneath a dynamometer, so that the whole of the car's underside was open to their view. The dynamometer, an affair of metal plates, rollers, and instrumentation, with a vague resemblance to a monstrous service station hoist, allowed a car to be operated as if on the road, while viewed from any angle.
They had already inspected, while above, the other cowl-to-steering column-to-cowl brace.
Jameson conceded, 'Possibly you could save a few cents from cost, but no more, after allowing for material, machining, then bolt fittings and installation labor.'
The engineer's manner, a kind of pedantic detachment as if cost and economics were really none of his concern, continued to irritate Adam, who asked, 'How much is Engineering protecting itself? Do we really need all that?'
It was a perennial question from a product planner to an engineer. The product men regularly accused engineers of building in, everywhere, greater strength margins than necessary, thus adding to an automobile's cost and weight while diminishing performance. Product Planning was apt to argue: If you let the Iron Rings have their way, every car would have the strength of Brooklyn Bridge, ride like an armored truck, and last as long as Stonehenge. Taking an adversary view, engineers declaimed: Sure, we allow margins because if something fails we're the ones who take the rap. If product planners did their own engineering, they'd achieve light weight - most likely with a balsawood chassis and tinfoil for the engine block.
'There's no engineering protection there.' It was Jameson's turn to be huffy. 'We've reduced the NVH to what we believe is an acceptable level.
If we went a more complicated route - which would cost more - we could probably take it out entirely. So far we haven't.'
Adam said noncommittally, 'We'll see what this does.'
Jameson led the way as the trio climbed a metal stairway from the inspection level to the main floor of the Noise and Vibration Laboratory above.
The lab - a building at the proving ground which was shaped like an airplane hangar and divided into specialist work areas, large and small - was busy as usual with NVH conundrums tossed there by various divisions of the company. One problem now being worked on urgently was a high-pitched, girlish-sounding scream emitted by a new-type brake on diesel locomotives. Industrial Marketing had enjoined sternly: The stopping power must be
