Journal articles on the topic 'Automotive Body And Fender Repair'

Robust tolerance design is an effective way to reduce the production risk. Traditionally, manufacturing cost and product quality are considered to be the optimization objectives. Designers often adopt the single-objective optimization or establish a comprehensive evaluating function combining several optimization objectives with different weights. It may not be desirable as it is difficult to identify the weights and balance the conflicting demands reasonably. This paper presents a kind of game approach to solve the robust tolerance design problem for automotive body products. Instead of designing specific objective functions, some measuring data in the manufacturing process are collected, and a robust game model considering the cost and the quality demand is established by transforming the part and the product information into relevant game components. The Nash bargaining method (NBM) of game theory is adopted to attain a balanced solution. It calls on two players in a game to start negotiation from a reference vector and achieve a trade-off vector as far as possible from the worse situation. Finally, an example of vehicle fender demonstrates the application and the performance of this method.

Dalam Industrial Engineering kualitas merupakan salah satu hal yang sangat di perhatikan dalam prosesnya, sama halnya yang dilakukan oleh PT. XYZ. Departemant Body Line 1 salah satu departemen yang ada di PT XYZ yang bertugas membuat body mobil dengan menggunakan mesin las co2 dan las spot untuk merakit. Didalam di Body Line 1 Departemen, ada beberapa masalah yang berkaitan dengan produksi yaitu masalah kualitas yang mempengaruhi defect per unit (DPU) meningkat. Ada beberapa jalur yang menyumbang tingginya defect pada body Line 1. Akan tetapi pada line metal finish adalah penyumbang defect yang paling tinggi yaitu sebesar 493 temuan defect yang didominasi defect fender Lh bump impact fitting unit D17D sebesar 294. Metal finish adalah tempat merakit door assy dan proses repair appearance di body welding, hal ini dilakukan untuk menjaga kualitas body yang akan dikirim ke Painting department, Sedangkan target kebijakan dari perusahaan adalah 0,2% defect dari total produksi sehingga perlu adanya penanggulangan agar target perusahaan tercapai. Perbaikan yang dilakukan untuk mengatasi masalah tersebut dengan mengunakan Plan – Do – Check - Action (PDCA). Diharapkan dengan perbaikan ini dapat menurunkan defect yang sedang terjadi jalur Metal Finish D 17D. sehingga target kualitas yang sudah ditetapkan dapat tercapai. Dari kegiatan perbaikan tersebut, defect fender bump LH impact fitting dari bulan April – September 2017 dapat diturunkan dari 294 defect menjadi 4 defect pada bulan Desember 2017. Sehingga target yang sudah ditetpakan oleh manajement telah tercapa.

In order to improve the repair quality and efficiency of automotive body collision damage, and ensure the safety and reliability of the automobile after repairing, the paper discusses the integral body deformation characteristics based on the analysis of automobile impact force. Aiming at structural damage of integral body, the paper makes body damage repair process, analyzes the main factors which affect the body fixed and measurement, and puts forward a method which uses a multi-point pulling and the computer 3D measurement system to repair the damage. Finally, the validity of the method is verified by the collision case. The results show that the method can effectively control the position deviation of the body structure not more than 3mm, it can also improve the repair quality of automotive collision and reduce reworking rates effectively.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendapatkan informasi tentang: (1) profil kompetensi DU/DI bidang perbaikan bodi otomotif, (2) profil kompetensi TPBO pada SMK di Kabupaten Bantul, dan (3) tingkat relevansi antara profil kompetensi DU/DI bidang perbaikan bodi otomotif dengan profil kompetensi TPBO pada SMK di Kabupaten Bantul. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif komparatif dengan pendekatan penelitian kuantitatif yang didukung dengan data kualitatif sebagai bahan memperkuat data dalam bab pembahasan dengan metode penelitian survei. Penelitian ini melibatkan 42 responden dari DU/DI bidang perbaikan bodi otomotif, 7 guru, dan 29 siswa SMK TPBO di Kabupaten Bantul. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan: (1) terdapat 147 butir kompetensi dalam profil kompetensi DU/DI bidang perbaikan bodi otomotif, (2) terdapat 85 butir kompetensi yang terdapat dalam dokumen KTSP SMK TPBO di Kabupaten Bantul dan 103 butir kompetensi yang menjadi profil kompetensi kerja yang diimplementasikan dalam pembelajaran pada SMK TPBO di Kabupaten Bantul, dan (3) tingkat relevansi antara profil kompetensi DU/DI bidang perbaikan bodi otomotif dengan profil kompetensi dokumen KTSP SMK TPBO di Kabupaten Bantul menunjukkan angka 27,211% (tidak relevan). Sedangkan tingkat relevansi dengan profil kompetensi kerja yang diimplementasikan dalam pembelajaran pada SMK TPBO di Kabupaten Bantul menunjukkan angka 70,068% (relevan). Kata kunci: profil kompetensi dunia kerja bidang perbaikan bodi otomotif, profil kompetensi TPBO pada SMK, Relevansi.THE COMPETENCY PROFILE OF THE WORLD OF WORK OF AUTOMOTIVE BODY REPAIR SECTOR AND ITS LEVEL OF RELEVANCE TO THE EDUCATION WORLD Abstract This study aimed to get information about: (1) the competency profile of Business World/ Industrial World (BW/IW) of automotive body repair sector, (2) the competency profile of TPBO SMK in Bantul, and (3) the level of relevance between the competency profile of BW/IW automotive body repair sector and the competency profile of TPBO SMK in Bantul. This research was descriptive comparative using the quantitative research approach accompanied by qualitative data as supporting data in the discussion chapter with the survey method. This research involved 42 respondents from BW/IW automotive body repair sector, 7 teachers, and 29 students from TPBO SMK in Bantul. The results showed: (1) there were 147 items of competency in the competency profile of BW/IW automotive body repair sector, (2) there were 85 items of competency contained in the curriculum of TPBO SMK in Bantul and 103 items of competency in the work competency profile implemented in teaching processes at TPBO SMK in Bantul, and (3) the level of relevance between the competency profile of BW/IW automotive body repair sector and the competency profile of the curriculum of TPBO SMK in Bantul was 27.211% (irrelevant). The level of relevance with the work competency profile implemented in teaching processes at TPBO SMK in Bantul was 70.068% (relevant). Keywords: competency profile of world of work of automotive body repair sector, competency profile of TPBO SMK, and relevance

Recently repair and recovery vehicle body operations become more and more popular. A special place here is taken by equipment that provides performance of given repair operations. The most interesting things are methods for recovery of car body panels that allow the straightening without disassembling of car body panels and damaging of existing protective coating. Now, there are several technologies for repair and recovery of car body panels without their disassembly and dismantling. The most perspective is magnetic-pulse technology of external noncontact straightening. Basics of magnetic-pulse attraction, both ferromagnetic and nonferromagnetic thin-walled sheet metal, are explored. Inductor system calculation models of magnetic-pulse straightening tools are presented. Final analytical expressions for excited efforts calculation in the tools under consideration are introduced. According to the obtained analytical expressions, numerical evaluations of excited forces were executed. The volumetric epures of the attractive force radial distributions for different types of inductors were built. The practical testing of magnetic-pulse straightening with research tools is given. Using the results of the calculations we can create effective tools for an external magnetic-pulse straightening of car body panels.

Augmented reality is the integration of digital information and user’s real life environment. It overlays virtual information on top of existing environment to user’s perception towards the reality. Technicians and engineers in automotive industry at workshops today have mountains of data and information for diagnostics and repair. The worker must search for the information, and then manually check to see if he can assess the problem and repair what is not functional. Worker must refer to a printed drawing of the testing body, with the inspection parts marked on this drawing. Augmented reality application is proposed to replace these conventional references to eliminate their disadvantages. The objectives of this paper are to develop an augmented reality applicationto and evaluate the effectiveness of augmented reality application developed. Vuforia, Blender and Unity were used to develop augmented reality application due to their easy to use features. The application developed will be tested by respondents to conduct inspection and maintenance process using both conventional references and augmented reality application developed. Survey will also be carried out to evaluate the acceptance level of locals towards augmented reality application as well. The technology has proven to be popular in the automotive industry.

This paper deals with the undesired effects of the heat treatments on the mechanical properties of (UHSS) Ultra High Strength Steel used nowadays in automotive industry to improve crashworthiness performance of vehicles. The UHSS specimens were extracted from certain parts of the car body and subjected to different heat treatments. Four types of specimens were tested: untreated, welded with metal inert gas welding, heat treated at 800 °C, and heat treated at 1250 °C. All heat-treated specimens showed dramatically reduced values of strength. The results suggest that it is important to follow the official repair manuals avoiding unnecessary welding and improper heat treatments of UHSS. The experiments provide the data necessary for constructing a constitutive model and performing a finite-element analysis of improperly repaired UHSS parts.

The business of buying and selling used cars is increasingly substantial in Indonesia, in the era of globalization progressively developing depends on demands a process that must be fast, precise, and economical. Repair to body, chassis, and engine are competency expertise in the field of Automotive Engineering that emphasizes automotive repair service skills. at now selling price of used cars, it is necessary to do repairs, the process of repairing used cars or better known as refurbishment work pre-owned cars is mostly done by small-scale used car buying and selling businesses. In order for used cars to return to their like-new condition, generally small-scale used car sellers carry out the process of repairing the vehicle themselves, especially repairs to the vehicle's body paint. This study aims to process of painting a Toyota Avanza car bodypaint against the thickness of the paint using a spray booth tool by using the model of central composite design (CCD). The effect of spray-on booth temperature, interstice size of the spray gun, and time according to the thickness of the paint will be analyzed using the CCD method. This spray booth painting technology is expected to help reduce bodypaint lead time. The results of the ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) regression analysis, the temperature of the spray booth, interstice size of the spray gun, and time are the factors that most significantly affect the thickness of the paint. The operating conditions to produce optimal paint thickness are temperature 55oC, interstice size of spray gun of 1.7 mm and time of painting and drying of 30 minutes, the resulted of a thickness of the paint for used and new cars are 130.2 μm and 81.84 μm., with a coefficient of determination for used and new cars of 90.78% and 96.19%.

Abstract BACKGROUND When an anterior approach to repair a burst fracture is indicated, several devices can be used to restore spinal stability (eg, bone graft, free-standing titanium cage, and expandable titanium cage). OBJECTIVE We compare the biomechanical stability and prices of each of these systems. MATERIALS AND METHODS Eight fresh human cadaver T11 through L3 vertebral specimens were harvested and cleaned of soft tissues. T11-T12 and L2-L3 were fixed by screws. The fixed ends were then set in automotive body filler (Bondo). The prepared specimens were tested in the Biaxial Instron tester (8874, Norwood, MA) after a sequence of the following: intact, after the creation of an anterior corpectomy at L1, and after insertion of both of the 2 different titanium cages and the fibular graft. A titanium screw-and-plate anterolateral system was used to secure the construct (VANTAGE, Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Memphis, TN). The conditions of displacement testing were as follows: rotation (± 3.5°), flexion and extension, and left and right bending (± 3.5 mm). For each mode of testing, the stiffness was calculated. RESULTS The stiffness data, when statistically analyzed by repeated-measures analysis of variance (at P = .05 and power ≫ 0.9), indicated no significant differences among these devices. CONCLUSION On the basis of this biomechanical study, the stiffness of the fibular graft was similar to that of the other metallic devices in this cadaver model.

Chemical contamination and safe work practices of workers in automotive refinishing shops have been extensively studied in industrialized countries, but the evidence in developing countries is limited. This study aimed to evaluate chemical contamination and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) of workers in local small-scale automotive refinishing shops in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Airborne toluene and heavy metals, i.e., lead, chromium, and cadmium, were measured in 3 automotive refinishing shops. Toluene exposure assessed by urinary hippuric acid (n = 27) and metal contamination on workers’ hands (n = 24) were also determined. Information on the use of PPE and personal hygiene practices of the workers was collected by questionnaires. Average ambient levels of toluene (0.04–18.26 ppm) and the metals (Pb: ND-26.34, Cr: 0.02–4.46, and Cd: ND-1.44 µg/m3) in all sites did not exceed the national standard levels of 200 ppm for toluene (1998) and 50, 12, and 5 µg/m3 for Pb, Cr, and Cd, respectively (2017). The mean ambient levels of these chemicals were highest in paint spray booths followed by nonpainting areas and office rooms, respectively. The highest level of urinary hippuric acid (1.13 g/g creatinine) was found in a painter but did not exceed the recommended biological exposure index of 1.6 g/g creatinine (2014). In contrast, the highest levels of lead and chromium detected on the workers’ hands were found in body repair technicians. Direct hand contact without using gloves was suggested as a primary cause of metal contamination.

Purpose: Detection and evaluation of damage due to impact or fatigue loading in components made by composite materials is one of the main concern for automotive engineers. We focus on damage due to impact loading on long fibre, plastic matrix composite, as they represent one of the most interesting development solution for automotive components toward lightweight structure that in turn means reduction of fuel consumption and of Green House Gas emissions. Design/methodology/approach: An innovative simplified methodology is proposed, based on the impact and repeated impact behaviour of composite material, for the evaluation of the induced damage and of material residual elastic properties. The investigated composite laminate is made of eight twill-wave carbon fabrics impregnated with epoxy resin. The methodology consists of two phases: at first the identification of the impact response. Composite plates have been impacted at different energy levels and residual elastic properties measured through standard tensile tests. The relationship between impact energy and residual elastic properties is obtained. Then the exploration impact load is identified, large enough to give a well-defined picture of the suffered damage but soft enough to do not induce further damage in the composite laminate. Findings: This exploration impact test and the Damage Index (DI) value, as interpretation key, leads to a prediction of the local residual elastic properties in the damaged area. The proposed methodology has been validated on plate specimens. A strict correlation is found between the predicted and the actual residual elastic properties of the damaged composite plate. Practical implications: Subsequently it has been applied to a composite beam, with a omega shape transverse section, that can be considered as a demonstrator for a typical beam used in the car body frame. Originality/value: A selection on the following alternatives will be possible: a – don’t care the damage is not affecting the structure performance; b – repair is needed but will be sufficient; c – substitute the damaged component as soon as possible.

This Study Examines The Theory And Methods Of Forensic Engineering Analysis Applied To Pedestrian Trauma And Fatality. Optimally Approached With The Collective Analysis Of Both The Accident Reconstruction Engineer And Biomedical Engineer, The Accident Reconstruction Engineer Translates The Physical Evidence Related To The Vehicle And Scene While The Biomedical Engineer Interprets The Physical Evidence Related To The Human Body In The Biological Tissues. With Both Disciplines, A Collaborative Understanding Can Be Gained Using The Vehicular And Human Tissue Physical Evidence Available. The Case Presented Involves A Pedestrian Verses An Automobile. The Collision Between A Pedestrian And Automobile Resulted In The Death Of The Pedestrian. Physical Evidence On The Vehicle Included: A Dent In The Front Right Fender; A Spider Web Glass Fracture Pattern On The Windshield In The Lower Right Comer; And A Dent In The Right A-Pillar. This Study Will Also Demonstrate What Can Be Learned From The Absence Of Classic Physical Evidence On The Vehicle And On The Pedestrian As Well As The Determination Of When A Kinematic Study Is Appropriate For Pedestrian Verses Automobile Investigation.

Stretch forming process is primarily used for generating curved structures from sheet metals such as car body panels or aircraft fuselage panels. Although there are large number of studies about stretch forming, these investigations focus mainly on flat sheet metals. However, various parts especially in the automotive industry, such as passenger car fenders are first preformed to a profile and afterwards stretch formed to generate desired final geometry. Moreover, as a consequence of weight reduction activities, these fender parts are usually made of ultra-high strength steels (UHSS) in the last two years. In the current study, stretch forming characteristics of an open profile made of martensitic UHSS (MS1500) are investigated using finite elements method (FEM). Used geometry was an asymmetrical hat profile which was preformed using roll forming prior to stretch forming. Mechanical properties of the material used is characterized using tensile test and modeled using Swift isotropic strain hardening rule. Strain and stress distribution along the bend section, geometry and springback in the final part as well as forming force have been investigated using finite element (FE) simulations. A twist has been observed in the final product along its longitudinal axis. To validate the FE results, experiments have been conducted. Twist problem is also detected in the manufactured samples. The amount of springback in produced part was similar to the experiments. It is found that FE simulations can model stretch forming process of open profiles accurately.

Complying with the quality that customers require is an essential part of an organization, whether they are internal or external customers. This investigation was carried out in the Stamping and Body Departments of an assembled car company, these have performance indicators that impact both, one of them is Body Bining to Stamping, which represent the incidents in R / 1000 of defective parts released by Stamping found in Bodywork. During the analysis of the report, an increase in the indicator from 30.43 R/1000 to 44.14 R/1000 was noted, limiting the flow of parts of the manufacturing process, influencing productivity and the use of resources to repair parts with defects. Therefore, the objective is to reduce the number of defective parts of the Body Bining to Stamping indicator to increase the quality of the parts in the department studied. The procedure to be followed was DMAIC methodology, using the following activities: define the project to be attended, measure the process, analyze the causes of origin, improve the process, control the improved process and document the problem-solving process. The results that obtained show a decrease in the amount of defective parts of DPMO sending to the internal customer in approximately 65%. The goal of the Closures indicator was to send 28 R/1000 monthly incidents and managed to send 15.39 R/1000.

AbstractAluminium alloy-based metal matrix composites have successfully provided effective wear resistance and repair solutions in the automotive and aerospace sectors; however, the design and manufacture of these alloys are still under development. In this study, the microstructure, mechanical properties and wear resistance of low-pressure cold-sprayed Al-7 Mg/Al2O3 and Al-10 Mg/Al2O3 composite coatings were investigated. The specific wear rates of the coatings were measured when testing them against alumina (Al2O3) counterbody, and the results showed that the cold-sprayed Al-10 Mg/Al2O3 composite coating showed less wear due to its superior hardness, lower porosity and shorter mean free path compared to the Al-7 Mg/Al2O3 composite coating. The microstructural analysis of the worn surfaces of the composite coatings revealed abrasive wear as the primary wear mechanism, and more damages were observed on Al-7 Mg/Al2O3 composite coatings. Most notably, Al2O3 particles were pulled out from the coating and were entrapped between the Al2O3 counterbody and the coating contact surfaces, resulting in a three-body abrasion mode.

In my article, "A New Sound; a New Sensation: A Cultural and Literary Reconsideration of the Motorcar in Modernity" (Ryder), I propose that "a range of semiotic engines" may be mobilised "to argue that, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, the motorcar is received as relatum profundis of freedom". In that 2019 article I further argue that, as Roland Barthes has indirectly proposed, the automobile fits into a "highway code" and into a broader "car system" in which its attributes—including its architectural details—are received as signs of liberation (Barthes Elements, 10, 29). While extending that argument, with near exclusive focus on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and with special reference to the hero’s Rolls Royce, I argue here that the automobile is offered as a sign of both conquest and destruction; as both dream machine and vehicle of nightmare. This is not to suggest that the motorcar was, prior to 1925, seen in absolutely idealistic terms. Nor is it to suggest that by the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century the automobile had been unequivocally condemned. As observed in my 2019 article for the Southern Semiotic Review, while The Wind in the Willows (1908) is the first novel written in English to deal with the deleterious effects of the motorcar, "it is [nonetheless] impossible to find a literary text from the early part of the twentieth century that flatly condemns the machine". So, from Gatsby’s emblematic "circus wagon" to narrator Nick Carraway’s equally symbolic "Dodge", I argue that the motorcar is represented by Fitzgerald as an emblem of both dreams and wreckage.The first motorcar noted in The Great Gatsby is the "old Dodge" belonging to Nick Carraway—the novel’s narrator and greatest dodger (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 17). Dreaming of success, and having declared himself restless, Nick claims to have come East to try his luck in the bond business (16). But, reflecting a propensity to dishonesty, the unreliable narrator (Abrams, 168) eventually reveals that at least one of the reasons for his migration East is to escape his emotional responsibilities to a girl "out West" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 30); a girl to whom he continues to write letters signed "Love, Nick" (61). While these notions of being dodgy and dodging—and their connection to Carraway’s car—seem to have escaped the attention of commentators, several have nonetheless observed that the make suits its owner for another reason: a work-a-day mass-produced machine, the vehicle is surely a sign of the narrator’s conservatism. Tad Burness, for instance, notes that in the early twentieth century the Dodge was a make that particularly appealed to conservative and careful drivers (91). Certainly, the Dodge brothers’ advertising of the nineteen-twenties, which steadfastly emphasised staunchness and stability, reinforces this conclusion. The make, therefore, is entirely appropriate to Nick: a man who evades the vicissitudes of romance; who shuns excitement, who aligns himself with mainstream Midwestern values, who identifies more with the mechanical than with the human, and who, until the very end, fails to commit to the extraordinary. Apropos, in reviewing the manuscript of Gatsby, Keath Fraser records an exchange between Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway that was finally, and perhaps unfortunately, excised: "You appeal to me,” she said suddenly as we strolled away.“You’re sort of slow and steady ... you’ve got everything adjusted just right.” (Qtd. in Bloom, 67)To have been included at the end of the third chapter, Jordan’s assessment of Nick suggests that the narrator has over-tuned the cognitive machinery necessary to navigation through a social milieu to which he does not belong. While Fitzgerald may have felt this to be too blunt a narrative tool, the ‘slow and steady’ approach to life attributed to Nick in the finished novel clearly suggests that the narrator lives life by the manual.It may be argued, then, that while ostensibly facilitating a new start and an associated desire for upward social mobility, Nick’s old Dodge symbolises a perfunctory approach to the business of living, a shabby escape from a "tangle back home", and an escape from self (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 61). Certainly, it represents no "on the road" conquest. Indeed, Nick’s clinical and mechanical approach to life comes close to ruining him. Short of his identification with Gatsby at the end—and the subsequent telling of a tragic tale—Nick is an archetypal loser. While claiming to identify with the "racy, adventurous" feel of New York (59), his instinct is to fall back on "interior rules that act as brakes on [his] desires" (61). He therefore fails to connect with Jordan Baker—his racy and attractive would-be lover, herself named after the Jordan Playboy automobile: the "first car to be marketed on emotional appeal alone" (Heimann and Patton, 14). So, it turns out that Nick is one of life’s "rotten drivers" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 60)—an accusation he ironically levels at Jordan Baker who eventually tackles him on this point:"You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person." (154)As Fraser has pointed out, the mechanical and shifty Nick is far from honest (Bloom, 68). Rather than achieving any sort of emotional consummation, his already muted desires idle, misfire, or stall. Declaring himself to be "one of the few honest people that [he has] ever known" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 154), Nick’s self-deception is, from the outset, complete. Left without the stimulus of the hero, one wonders if perhaps Nick might become a George B. Wilson.Despite his dream of pecuniary success (something shared with Nick Carraway), garage proprietor George B. Wilson is impoverished by the automobile. A dissolute dealer in second-hand machines, this once-handsome but "spiritless man" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 33) has worked for years on scant margins. James Flink notes that dealers in used automobiles had a particularly hard time in the mid to late 1920s when profits on sales were very slight (144). The fact that Wilson is a second-hand car dealer also reinforces that everything else in his life is second-hand: built on the enterprise of others, his dream is second hand; his premises are second-hand; even his wife is second-hand. And, of course, he himself is used. Fitzgerald, then, is at pains to highlight the cultural meaning of the common or inferior car. Indeed, in the dark recesses of Wilson’s garage—which itself rests precariously on the edge of a wasteland under the faded and failed eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg—sits a "dust-covered wreck of a Ford" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 33). Emblematic of the garage proprietor’s broken dreams, Wilson’s psychic paralysis is variously foregrounded—principally by the broken car. Here we have nothing less than Heidegger’s das Gestell: the mechanised consciousness as discussed in his essay "The Question Concerning Technology" (in Krell, 227). Significantly, only automobiles elicit a spark of interest from Wilson—but the irony, as suggested above, is that these are signs of the technical spirit to which he has so utterly acquiesced.It is often, if not always, the case in Gatsby that automobiles signpost derailed agency and, therefore, broken dreams. After all, Gatsby’s own death and funeral are foreshadowed through the automobile. In the first chapter, for example, Nick tells his cousin Daisy that "all the cars in Chicago have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath" for her (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 22). More portentously, during Nick and Gatsby’s drive to Astoria, "a dead man" passes the hero’s Rolls-Royce "in a hearse heaped with blooms" (68). While Myrtle’s death and Gatsby’s murder are contemporaneously suggested, in this emblematic tableau Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce is also overtaken by a limousine—and so the final chapter’s depressing "procession of three cars" is subtly anticipated (153). A "horribly black and wet" motor hearse bears Gatsby’s corpse to the cemetery while the narrator arrives with Gatsby’s father and the minister in a limousine. Then come the servants and the postman in Gatsby’s yellow station wagon. That the yellow and black cars are so incongruously and so tragically juxtaposed is a structurally and semantically significant feature of the text. The yellow car that once bore cheerful guests to Gatsby’s parties now follows the black hearse—the novel’s ultimate and, arguably, most awful death car. Thus, Fitzgerald presents us with one last reminder that, corrupted by our materialistic drives, our dreams wither and die; that there is, in the end, no magic.As Robert Long points out, however, the manuscript of Gatsby confirms that Fitzgerald had originally intended such foreshadowing to be much more obvious. For instance, in the manuscript, when Gatsby drives Nick to New York he declares his car to be "the handsomest in New York" and that he "wouldn’t want to ride around in a big hearse like some of those fellas do" (Long, 193). Further confirmation of Fitzgerald’s determination to mute the novel’s funereal symbolism is provided in chapter two when, along with the word "sepulchrally", the phrase "reeks of death" is crossed out (Long, 194). As published, then, the automobile travels much more subtly in The Great Gatsby. While a ghostly machine turns up to the hero’s house shortly after the funeral, the end of the road for Nick is suggested when he sells his plain old Dodge to a plain old grocer (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 157-158).The counterpoint to Nick’s old Dodge is, of course, Gatsby’s magnificent Rolls Royce: literature’s ultimate dream car. C.S. Rolls knew very well that his automobile was the new haute couture of the privileged. In his famous article on motorcars in the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, he declares the upmarket machine to be "the private carriage of the wealthier classes to be used on all occasions" (223). To set it apart from competitors, the Rolls Royce not only offered an extraordinarily robust and responsive chassis, but boasted bodywork hand-crafted by a range of highly skilled artisans. W.A. Robotham writes that "one of the more fascinating aspects of Rolls-Royce car production in the twenties was the manufacture of the body at the many coachbuilding establishments that existed in London, the provinces, and Paris" (14). Once an order for a chassis was placed, an appointed carrossier would prescribe and detail coachwork and agonise over every internal appointment. With its "interior of glittering plate glass and rich morocco", the unnamed machine that so hopelessly besots the Toad in the third chapter of The Wind in the Willows is undoubtedly the result of such a special order—and seems likely to have goaded Fitzgerald into a fit of imitation (Grahame, 30). Apposite to a novel that contrasts dream and reality and pertinent to the near nonchalant agency of its wraithlike, almost ethereal, hero, Gatsby’s car is a cream-yellow Rolls Royce: a Silver Ghost. When C.S. Rolls conceived the model, he wrote: "the motion of the car must be absolutely silent. The car must be free from the objectionable rattling and buzzing and inconvenience of chains. ... The engine must be smokeless and odourless" (Robson, 27). Reflecting its whisper-quiet locomotion and its extensive use of silver, nickel, and aluminium plating, Rolls’s partner Claude Johnson gave the model its perfect name. Manufactured between 1906 and 1925, the Silver Ghost was the automobile of choice for F. Scott Fitzgerald himself. In 1922, the year in which Gatsby is set, Scott and his wife Zelda owned a second-hand Silver Ghost which they drove, with much joy, between Great Neck and New York. Here, then, lies one of those rare and fortuitous connections between one’s personal drives and one’s work; really, the hero of Fitzgerald’s third novel could have no other motorcar.Like the machine he drives, and in keeping with Roland Barthes’ idea that automobiles are somehow "magical" (Mythologies, 88), Gatsby would appear to have arrived from the heavens. Ghost-like, he glides in and out of the narrative and is, moreover, ineluctably associated with silver. He has pursued silver for much of his life and is, on numerous occasions, specifically identified with this powerful symbol of privilege and betrayal. While Nick finds him "regarding the silver pepper of the stars" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 31), later the "pale", wraithlike hero wears a "silver shirt" (80). So much the object of Gatsby’s yearnings, along with Jordan Baker, Daisy Buchanan is likened to a "silver idol" (105), has a "voice full of money", and wears a hat of "metallic cloth" (109). A trophy held in hopeless memory, Daisy may be said to be one of an extensive collection of enchanted objects beheld and worshipped by an all-too-flawed hero—but while Fitzgerald’s numerous references to silver undoubtedly highlight a double-edged significance, it is nonetheless suggestions of glamour that first strike us. Early in the novel, then, aside from the portentous foreshadowing of disasters to come, Gatsby’s car emerges as a powerful archetype: an image coupled with enormous emotive significance (Jung, 87); a sign of uncompromised and near-miraculous opulence. Terraced with windshields and sporting a green leather interior, his magnificent cream-yellow Rolls Royce is "bright with nickel" (a very expensive plating used for Rolls Royce radiators) and is "swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper boxes and tool boxes" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 64). Fitzgerald’s parataxis here seems to encourage breathless awe at the near obscene luxury of the vehicle, yet the depiction is historically accurate.In an Autocar article of 1921 there appears a closely-annotated plan of a two-seater Rolls Royce. Numerous fittings are noted: food lockers, tool cupboards, hot-and-cold water-locker, wash-basin compartment, spares cupboard, kodak photography compartment, cooking utensil compartment, suit and dressing cases, spare accumulator compartment, and recess for spare petroleum tins (Garnier and Allport, 50). Like Toad’s, Gatsby’s chimerical car is undoubtedly the creation of a carrossier. Its standard of appointment, moreover, suggests royal status. Since the Rolls-Royce is an English car, its presence in America, where it was manufactured under licence for a time, also points to a desire to recapture something left behind. This, as all readers of Fitzgerald will know, is a major thematic thread in Gatsby. To be explored in a forthcoming article, the relationship between this theme of "backing up" (that is, recapturing the past) and representations of the motorcar in the novel is profound, but for the moment I focus on the Silver Ghost as a sign of Gatsby’s outrageous aristocratic pretensions. Perhaps an expression of Fitzgerald’s own fantasy that he wasn’t the son of his parents at all, but the child of a world-ruling king, Gatsby claims to have lived "like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 65). If not actually a Rolls-Royce-loving rajah, Gatsby certainly lives like a king and even signs himself "in a majestic hand" (47). Indeed, in these senses and more, the hero is "circus master" and performer par excellence.As a letter from Fitzgerald to Maxwell Perkins tells us, Petronius’s Satyrica furnished one of several alternative titles for Gatsby (Fitzgerald Letters, 169). Pointing to a delight in comedic hedonism, "Trimalchio in West Egg" was one of several titular options entertained by Fitzgerald (Gatsby is actually referred to as Trimalchio at the start of the novel’s seventh chapter) and so it is fitting that Brian Way declares Gatsby’s Rolls Royce to be "not so much a means of transport as a theatrical gesture"—one commensurate with the hero’s "non-stop theatrical performance" (Way in Bloom, 102). Similarly, in their 2019 article "Comfortably Cocooned: Onboard Media and Sydney’s Ongoing Gridlock", Richardson and Ryder argue that the automobile is far greater than the sum of its collective parts. In a similar vein, Leo Marx writes that Gatsby has about him a "gratifying sense of a dream about to be consummated" and argues that the hero’s dream car is one of many objects in the novel that speak to Gatsby’s attempt to locate, in the real world, the stuff of unutterable visions (Marx, 77). As "circus wagon" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 109), the machine also makes a substantial contribution to Fitzgerald’s comedy of the excess: cars driven by clowns at circuses stereotypically seem to operate according to a set of physical laws distinct from those governing the real world. However, with its "fenders spread like wings" (67), the hero’s car seems destined to fly. But, like Daisy’s white roadster, a machine that ironically bespeaks innocence and purity while sitting portentously "under … dripping bare lilac-trees" (81), Gatsby’s machine—one of the most heavenly automobiles in literature—is also literature’s most famous death car. While, in the end, the make of the killing machine is not spelled out for us, we may nonetheless be sure that it is Gatsby’s ever-so-aptly owned Silver Ghost. After the dreadful accident in the seventh chapter, the fender of the hero’s carefully hidden open car is in need of repair. That the death car is an open one is highlighted for us before the accident, when Gatsby feels the pleated leather seats of the machine that will mow Myrtle down. The point is reinforced in chapter eight, after the accident, when Gatsby orders that his open car not be taken out. Moreover, while automobile upholstery specification varied in the nineteen-twenties, open cars generally had pleated leather seat cushions while mohair or broadcloth featured in closed tourers. This, too, narrows down the options confronting readers. Finally, the focus on the Rolls Royce’s great fenders (these are referred to at least three times before Myrtle is killed) also establishes a clear connection between the calamity and Gatsby’s "winged" Rolls. And, finally, there is the crucial matter of the ambiguous paintwork.Nick tells us that Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce is a "rich cream colour" (64) while Mavro Michaelis claims that the death car is "light green" (123). Another witness to the accident claims that the vehicle involved is "a yellow car"; "a big yellow car" (125). In fact, they are all right. Like Gatsby himself, his motorcar suggests one thing at one time and another at another. From about the mid-nineteen-tens, Rolls-Royce painted a good many Silver Ghosts a rather uncertain cream-yellow and, in fading light, the lacquer betrays a greenish hue. We remember that the party drives "towards death through the cooling twilight" (122); that Myrtle runs out "into the dusk"; and that the death car comes "out of gathering darkness" (123). While an earlier 1914 model, there is an excellent example of this ambiguous colour used on a Silver Ghost in Turin’s Museo dell’automobile. Finally, of course, the many references to ‘ghosts’ and to ‘silver’ connected with both the hero and Daisy Buchanan cannot be considered accidental. In one of modern literature’s greatest novels, then, behind the dream of the automobile falls the depressingly foul dust of betrayal and death.ReferencesAbrams, Meyer H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1957/1993.Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. Trans. A. Lavers. NY: Hill and Wang, 1964/1977.———. Mythologies. Trans. A. Lavers. NY: Hill & Wang, 1957/1974.Bloom, Harold, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: Modern Critical Interpretations. NY: Chelsea House, 1986.Burness, Tad. Cars of the Early Twenties. NY: Galahad, 1968.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: The Folio Society, 1926/1968.———. The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. A. Turnbull. London: The Bodley Head, 1964.Flink, James. The Car Culture. Mass.: MIT Press, 1975.Garnier, Peter, and Warren Allport. Rolls Royce: From the Archives of Autocar. London: Hamlyn, 1978.Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. 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