The author with Dr. Alex Moulton CBE at his home in July 2011
As the creator of Hydrolastic and Hydragas, most acknowledge that Dr. Alex Moulton knows something of suspension design. What is less known is that, whilst working at Bristol Aero Engines, Moulton, motoring correspondent Gordon Wilkins, and aero engineer Sir Roy Fedden, were involved with the creation of a prototype ‘people’s car’ which drew inspiration from Tatra and Volkswagen. “We really didn’t understand that the Volkswagen Beetle’s engineering and design hid several faults!” Moulton recalls, “All the wrong things… rear wheel drive, weight at the back, air-cooling. All personified in the Volkswagen.”
Unlike Tatra and Volkswagen, however, the Fedden used a radial sleeve valve engine. “Young people… young engineers particularly… if they’re at the cutting edge of a technology, feel that their technology must be the best way of dealing with any problem. So, having created enormous numbers of the sleeve valve radial engine during the war, we chose that.” He admits frankly that this was a bad idea in retrospect, not least because the instability inherent in rear-engined designs was exacerbated by the working of a radial engine. “It was worse, absolutely. It was all higher. Not only was there… this… air-cooled but it was rather higher, so the centre of gravity was put up.”
The Fedden was designed during slack periods at Bristol. “When the engineers concerned with armaments during the war were on nights, waiting for our bombers to drop down, we used to talk about designing a car” Sadly, with handling that was described by testers as ‘lethal’, issues with both stability and noise at speed, and performance figures which were dismal compared with the intended competition, the Fedden never saw production. The sole prototype was all but destroyed during testing when it overturned, flinging one of the occupants from the car. Moulton’s reasoning for this lethal flaw is clear: “It was due to the mass being at the back, and also due to the beam axles - the combination of it was actually epitomised in that enormously successful car, the Beetle, which had a rear engine and weight at the back.”
The animated and self-deprecating way in which Dr. Moulton, now 91 and still mentally and physically fit, is able to talk about one of the failed projects he was involved with shows that the man is, at heart, an engineer, not an egotist. I quote some of the original Fedden literature concerning the car – “The Fedden radial engine allows low build, comfortable seating position and maximum body space with minimum overhang. Correct weight distribution is therefore assured.” “That was our ambition. But it ended up disastrously!”
Moulton’s future colleague Sir Alec Issigonis gave Britain the Morris Minor in 1948. The Fedden was a victim of ambition, and Moulton acknowledges that the simple brilliance of the Morris made it the better car. “We all had them!” As history relates, together these two men would give us the ultimate people’s car; the Mini – ambition and simplicity combined in one tiny, ingenious, and now ubiquitous package.
