Possibly the Weirdest Wiper Design Ever

[Broadsword]

Brought to you live from the Geneva Motorshow. What we have here is possibly the strangest implememtation of a windscreen wiper I have ever seen on a car. Also it’s the ugliest thing in the building. A Lancia Sibilo Bertone concept from the 1970s. I’m sure DW will find this interesting/is already aware.

[carlo]

Reminds me of those linear tracking turntables from the eighties (?) which lasted all of five minutes.

[willswitchengage]

That is pretty cool. The windscreen reminds me of the last time I tried to use masking tape.

 

[Soap Distant]

Linear wipers you say? 

 

Seen here is London Transport Q1, an AEC Q type side engined single decker built in 1932. Before acceptance into service, the wipers were modified to what was seen here - twin linear tracking wipers per side. Also seen on some taxis apparently around that era. 

Nothing new under the sun.

 

 

[dollywobbler]

Very common on boats. I'd somehow never noticed that the Sibilo has one! Seem to recall it's a composite body, with the 'windows' just clearer areas of the composite. Remarkable design.

[Wingz123]

Very common on boats. I'd somehow never noticed that the Sibilo has one! Seem to recall it's a composite body, with the 'windows' just clearer areas of the composite. Remarkable design.

 

He heard the word 'wiper' and was never far away.......     

[dollywobbler]

He heard the word 'wiper' and was never far away.......     

 

I would have been here sooner, but I was crying inside my brain during a committee meeting. Joy!

[Broadsword]

Having been around all the exhibits in the motorshow I must conclude there was quite a lot of drab stuff there. The Lancia remains a standout curiosity. 11/10 on the brownometer. Big disappointments include Citroen with a very poor showing of drab tat and confirmation that hydropneumatic suspension is gone, and Jaguar with too many SUVs and the XJ side-lined completely. I also witnessed a 7 speed manual gearbox in person for the first time in a Porsche 911 GT-something and found the VW Up! GTi is a bloody excellent looking and feeling little package. Can't really complain since I didn't pay a penny for the trip to Switzerland and the ticket to the show was only 8 CHF.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Linear wipers you say? 

 

Seen here is London Transport Q1, an AEC Q type side engined single decker built in 1932. Before acceptance into service, the wipers were modified to what was seen here - twin linear tracking wipers per side. Also seen on some taxis apparently around that era. 

Nothing new under the sun.

 

3090841.jpg

Also tried by British Railways on one of their Class 52 diesel-hydraulic locomotives in the 1960s.

[Rod/b]

Very common on boats. I'd somehow never noticed that the Sibilo has one! Seem to recall it's a composite body, with the 'windows' just clearer areas of the composite. Remarkable design.

That’s a brilliant idea that is. “Hi Autoglass, a stone just come up and cracked the windscreen. Not by much but enough to fail the MOT. Right... I see.... A complete new bodyshell you say....I’ll get back to you CLICK BRRRRRR *weeping*”

[SierraMikeHotel]

Reminds me of those linear tracking turntables from the eighties (?) which lasted all of five minutes.

I have one, although mine dates from the nineties. It does work, but I always wonder why they bothered when the traditional design is clearly a more sensible approach.

[chaseracer]

I would have been here sooner, but I was crying inside my brain during a committee meeting. Joy!

 

I feel your pain.  Welcome to my world...

[Inspector Morose]

Very common on boats.

 

As seen on hovercraft too HOT WIPER ACTION AT 0:20!

 

[Talbot]

I have one, although mine dates from the nineties. It does work, but I always wonder why they bothered when the traditional design is clearly a more sensible approach.

Wasn't it something to do with always keeping the stylus tangential to the track that it's playing? Using a fixed pivot and fixed length arm, the stylus is only truly tangential somewhere near the centre of the record. At the beginning and the end there is an angle offset.

 

... which apparently makes 2/19ths of sod all difference to sound quality.

[tooSavvy]

Reminds me of those linear tracking turntables from the eighties (?) which lasted all of five minutes.

A m8, from IMP Club days, got a 'suitcase* record player' >> you slid the records in like a DVD.

 

33 & 45

 

Presumably a linear/tracking head ?

 

*kinda 'walkman[wheelbarrow]+batteries'

 

 

https://youtu.be/br9kRKCOVw0

.... you get the idea

 

TS

[stormee]

Brought to you live from the Geneva Motorshow. What we have here is possibly the strangest implememtation of a windscreen wiper I have ever seen on a car. Also it’s the ugliest thing in the building. A Lancia Sibilo Bertone concept from the 1970s. I’m sure DW will find this interesting/is already aware.

Love the Marzal next to it.

[robinmasters]

Is that meant to be ironic or something? A wiper that covers every inch of the screen, but the screen is designed to look dirty round the edge all the time.

 

Or, more likely, without a central pivot they couldn't get the wiper to sit flat all the time so it didn't actually work very well?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

.... Lancia Sibilo Bertone concept from the 1970s. I’m sure DW will find this interesting/is already aware.

 

More about it here

[Datsuncog]

The Sibilo Bertone really is unlike anything I've ever seen...

 

 

More about it here: https://www.classicdriver.com/en/article/cars/total-recall-lancia-sibilo-car-fell-earth

 

Wooden wheels and plexiglass doors... just wow.

 

I can get behind most of it, all except the way "the bonnet and doors appeared to seamlessly merge with the windows [...] with hand-sprayed colour fadings"

 

Just makes me think of terrible, terrible overspray.

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

....Wooden wheels ....

 

It looks like the rear ones are greater diameter than the fronts. Drag racer style?

[LC Torana]

Oh.  So that really is overspray onto the glass.

 

And that was actually boasted as a design feature?

 

Perhaps that blue Maxi could be re-advertised to say "the tyres seamlessly merge with the bodywork with hand-sprayed colour fadings".

[Tadhg Tiogar]

....hand-sprayed colour fadings".

Is that a thing now? It sounds like something you'd find on avantgarde home fittings and furnishings.

[seth]

In an ideal world that would have three wipers (the correct number) moving side to side in a random sequence.

[Datsuncog]

It looks like the rear ones are greater diameter than the fronts. Drag racer style?

 

Looks like it... though I really wouldn't want to be pulling any high speed hi-jinks on these tyres...

 

 

Funky interior, mind. Liking that acrylic gearknob.

 

 

Dino V6 providing the power. I'd have guessed this was just a styling exercise mock-up, but it's a fully working prototype.

 

 

And that Gandini styling... it may well be the ugliest thing in the building at Geneva, but is anyone else seeing some foreshadowing of the Citroen BX in the lower half?

 

 

 

Corrado Lopresto of Milan - owner of this noble steed. A man who laughs at claustrophobia.

 

 

Rock on.

[barefoot]

Looks more like the XM to me!

[Talbot]

There's more than a hint of the Stratos Zero in that sibilo.. hardly a surprise though.

 

You can see where elements of the Volvo Tundra came from too, and how that evolved into the BX. I do love a Gandini / Bertone styled car. Looks very modernist.

 

The Acrylic gearknob in that Sibilo was clearly where the early X1/9 gearknob came from too. Horrible to use on a daily basis.

[Datsuncog]

Looks more like the XM to me!

You know, I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree here... granted, Bertone's XM was very much derived from Gandini's BX concept, but the arch profiles, rubbing strip line and general proportions of the Sibilo's lower half seem much more BX than XM to my tired eyes.

 

 

 

 

Gandini's own XM Concept looked rather more like the Sibilo from below the waistline, true - while also looking rather like a blockier version Pininfarina's BMC 1800 concept, which 'inspired' the Citroen CX, after BMC rather short-sightedly decided they wanted nowt to do with Leonardo Fioravante's futuristic design.

 

 

 

But yes, the BX concept was very clearly enunciated with Gandini's Volvo Tundra prototype the following year, even if they the Swedes did take fright at what he'd done to a 343 and quickly backed away.

 

 

Though, of course, when placed next to a 480... there's clearly been some transfer of ideas.

 

 

(Sorry - you can tell this interests me way too much!)

[willswitchengage]

There are probably more but this weird Anadol wedge thing from Turkey was also a direct relative of the BX and that Volvo concept:

 

[New POD]

As seen on hovercraft too HOT WIPER ACTION AT 0:20!

 

 

Hovercraft ? Technically a low flying plane.

[davocano]