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British Leyland ECV3
The ECV3 is a concept car developed by British Leyland's BL Technology division, led by Spen King. The ECV3 was first shown to the public in December 1982, and was the third in a series of Energy Conservation Vehicles that BL was developing, incorporating new engine technologies and construction materials. The prototype is on display at the Gaydon Heritage Motor Centre. Technical details The ECV3 was powered by an experimental 3-cylinder, 12-valve 1.1 L (1113 cc) petrol engine, developing @ 5,800 rpm and torque of @ 3,750 rpm, and mated to a manual 5-speed transmission. The engine was a lightweight 84 kg. While the engine did not reach production, it did lead to the design of the 1988 K-Series engine. The car is built using an aluminium spaceframe chassis, co-developed with Alcan, and was the first ever bonded structure, and the body incorporates flexible plastic body panels made of polyurethane reinforced reaction injection moulding (PU-RRIM). The design of the five-do ...
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British Leyland
British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company called British Leyland, later renamed BL in 1978. It incorporated much of the British-owned motor vehicle industry, which in 1968 had a 40 percent share of the UK car market, with its history going back to 1895. Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, as well as the best-selling Mini, BLMC had a troubled history, leading to its eventual collapse in 1975 and subsequent part-nationalisation. After much restructuring and divestment of subsidiary companies, BL was renamed the Rover Group in 1986, becoming a subsidiary of British Aerospace from 1988 to 1994, then was subsequently bought by BMW. The final surviving incarnation of the c ...
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Hatchback
A hatchback is a car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to a cargo area. Hatchbacks may feature fold-down second row seating, where the interior can be reconfigured to prioritize passenger or cargo volume. Hatchbacks may feature two- or three-box design. While early examples of the body configuration can be traced to the 1930s, the Merriam-Webster dictionary dates the term itself to 1970. The hatchback body style has been marketed worldwide on cars ranging in size from superminis to small family cars, as well as executive cars and some sports cars. They are a primary component on a sport utility vehicle. Characteristics The distinguishing feature of a hatchback is a rear door that opens upwards and is hinged at roof level (as opposed to the boot/trunk lid of a saloon/sedan, which is hinged below the rear window). Most hatchbacks use a two-box design body style, where the cargo area ( trunk/boot) and passenger areas are a single ...
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Straight-three Engine
A straight-three engine (also called an inline-triple or inline-three) is a three-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. Less common than straight-four engines, straight-three engines have nonetheless been used in various motorcycles, cars and agricultural machinery. Design A crankshaft angle of 120 degrees is typically used by straight-three engines, since this results in an evenly spaced firing interval. Another benefit of this configuration is perfect primary balance and secondary balance, however an end-to-end rocking couple is induced because there is no symmetry in the piston velocities about the middle piston. A balance shaft is sometimes used to reduce the vibrations caused by the rocking couple. Other crankshaft angles have been used occasionally. The 1976-1981 Laverda Jota motorcycle used a 180 degree crankshaft, where the outer pistons rise and fall together and inner cylinder is offset from them by 180 degrees. ...
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Concept Car
A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle, show vehicle or prototype) is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not be mass-produced. General Motors designer Harley Earl is generally credited with inventing the concept car, and did much to popularize it through its traveling Motorama shows of the 1950s. Concept cars never go into production directly. In modern times all would have to undergo many changes before the design is finalized for the sake of practicality, safety, regulatory compliance, and cost. A " production-intent" prototype, as opposed to a concept vehicle, serves this purpose. Design Concept cars are often radical in engine or design. Some use non-traditional, exotic, or expensive materials, ranging from paper to carbon fiber to refined alloys. Others have unique layouts, such as gullwing doors, 3 or 5 (or more) wheels, or spe ...
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Spen King
Charles Spencer "Spen" King (26 March 1925 – 26 June 2010) was a significant figure in the Rover Company and, after their takeover, in the British Leyland Motor Corporation.After leaving school in 1942, he was first apprenticed to Rolls-Royce. He joined Rover, run by his uncles Maurice and Spencer Wilks, in 1945 and worked initially on the gas-turbine powered JET1 and T3 experimental prototypes. In 1959, he became chief engineer of new vehicle projects and is best known for his leadership of the teams that developed the advanced Rover P6 series, introduced as the 2000 in 1963, and the hugely successful Range Rover (of which a "CSK" special edition later celebrated his involvement) launched in June 1970. As well, he was responsible for the Rover-based Marauder sports car in 1950 and many Rover experimental and prototype vehicles. As Rover was taken over by the Leyland Motor Corporation which subsequently became British Leyland (BL), he also led teams responsible for the Triumph ...
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Heritage Motor Centre
The British Motor Museum in Warwickshire, England holds the world's largest collection of historic British cars, with over 300 cars on display from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Heritage Trust. History The creation of the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BL) in 1968 saw the bringing together of multiple motor vehicle companies and marques (Austin, Jaguar, Morris, MG, Riley, Rover, Standard Triumph, and Wolseley). With many of the companies having their own collections of historic vehicles, in 1975 a centralised ''Leyland Historic Vehicles'' department was created to manage these. As the collection got ever larger, in 1983 BL created charitable trusts to ensure that these important collections, not only of vehicles, but of company archives too, would be preserved for the nation. The ''British Motor Industry Heritage Trust'' (BMIHT) was created, and under its umbrella, so were the ''Austin Rover Group Heritage Trust'' and the ''Jaguar Daimler Herita ...
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Rover K Engine
The Rover K-series engine is a series of internal combustion engines built by Powertrain Ltd, a sister company of MG Rover. The engine was a inline-four engine, straight-four cylinder built in two forms, Overhead camshaft#Single overhead camshaft, SOHC and Overhead camshaft#Double overhead camshaft, DOHC, ranging from . Design history The K series was introduced in 1988 by Rover Group as a powerplant for the Rover 200 / 25, Rover 200 car. It was the second volume-production implementation of the low-pressure sand-casting (or LPS) technique in a new plant sited between East Works and Cofton Hackett. (The first volume application of the LPS process had been for the Rover M-series engine, M-16 cylinder head, produced in South Works, adjacent to the former forge). The LPS process pumped liquid aluminium into a chemically-bonded sand mould from below. This reduced oxide inclusions and gave a casting yield of around 90%, compared with 60% for more conventional gravity casting proces ...
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Alcan
Alcan was a Canadian mining company and aluminum manufacturer. It was founded in 1902 as the Northern Aluminum Company, renamed Aluminum Company of Canada in 1925, and Alcan Aluminum in 1966. It took the name Alcan Incorporated in 2001. During that time, it grew to become one of the world's largest aluminum manufacturers. Alcan was purchased by Australian-British multinational Rio Tinto for $38 billion in 2007, becoming Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. in 2008. It was headquartered in Montreal, in its Maison Alcan complex. History The Northern Aluminum Company Limited was founded in 1902, in Shawinigan, Quebec, as part of the Pittsburgh Reduction Company. In 1913, the company opened a kitchen utensil production plant and foundry in Toronto. It opened a rolling mill in the plant a few years later. During World War I (1914–18), aluminum production increased to 131,000 tonnes from 69,000. In 1925, the company was renamed the Aluminum Company of Canada. The Aluminum Company of Canada was ...
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Supermini
The B-segment is the second smallest of the European segments for passenger cars between the A-segment and C-segment, and commonly described as "small cars". The B-segment is the largest segment in Europe by volume, accounting for 20 percent of total car sales in 2020 according to JATO Dynamics. Definition The European segments are not based on size or weight criteria. In practice, B-segment cars have been described as having a length of approximately from up to , and may vary depending on the body styles, markets, and era. In some cases, the same car may be differently positioned depending on the market. The Euro NCAP vehicle class called "Supermini" also includes smaller A-segment cars alongside B-segment cars. In Britain, the term "supermini" is more widely used for B-segment hatchbacks. The term was developed in the 1970s as an informal categorisation, and by 1977 was used regularly by the British newspaper ''The Times''. By the mid-1980s, it had widespread use in Brita ...
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