56 replies to this topic

[Roger Clark]

It was announced today that the FIA are sponsoring a competition to design and build a new type of cat's eye, the reflective devices that are embedded in road surfaces to mark the edge of driving lanes. The lens of these cat's eyes have to be self-cleaning and it is expected that most contestants will concentrate on this aspect of the problem, often using a container filled with rain water to clean the lens. To publicise the competition, and to demonstrate the relevance of motor sport to everyday motoring, the FIA invited a number of racing car designers, past and present, to submit entries. Some of these proposals were installed on a race track and tested in a pilot scheme. Here are details of some early submissions.

Colin Chapman's proposal was tiny and light weight with a 5cc water container. It was pointed out that this was insufficient even for one cleaning of the lens but Chapman retorted that this was not mentioned in the regulations.

Daimler-Benz turned their entire drawing office and toolroom to design and manufacture their solution. Water was held in a spherical container ground from a solid brass ingot. It featured a total return circuit for the water, making replenishment unnecessary. Water was fed to the lens by three separate pumps, each capable of acting as back up for the other two in the event of failure. When asked what would happen if the common power source for the pumps failed, the engineer in charge said that it wouldn't fail as Daimler-Benz had made it, but if it did they would send out a man with a cloth to clean the lens.

The Officine Alfieri Maserati produced a simple and effective solution based on their previous products. They submitted 33 examples for the pilot although there was some doubt whether all 33 actually existed at the same time. It was soon realised that the Maserati cat's eyes were not all identical and could be distinguished by close examination of the welding techniques used by different mechanics in the factory. Sadly, a number of fatalities occurred due to people wearing anoraks examining the cat's eyes in the road while cars were running.

The March factory also produced a cat's eye based on their previous products. In fact some claimed that it was a recycled product from last year with a water container attached. The entry was disqualified when it was realised that there was no pipe connecting the container to the lens.

The Ford Motor Company reassembled the committee which designed the original Ford GT. Everybody agreed that their cat's eye was the best looking of all, but unfortunately the lens was fitted back to front and was lit only by the tail lights of passing cars.

The ever inventive Gordon Murray produced a solution that used not water as the cleaning mechanism, but a special high hysteresis liquid sourced from the aerospace industry. When a car passed over the cat's eye the liquid was spread over the road surface, vastly increasing the tyre's adhesion. The Brabham drivers were told to drive over the cat's eyes and lapped two seconds faster than anybody else. Murray proved conclusively (to his own satisfaction) that the primary purpose of the liquid was to clean the lens. There was some disquiet when it was realised that the liquid was radio active and had a half life of 10 billion years, but Murray's team owner dispelled criticism by saying that he had already bought the commercial rights for that period.

BRM promised an entry but it was not ready by the closing date. It finally arrived but was too big to fit into the holes made for it in the road surface.

Lotus submitted a second entry which featured a unique twin lens design. One lens moved as the car passed over it, the other remained still. To Chapman's disgust, the device was immediately declared illegal, but it didn't work anyway.

It is hoped that more entries will be submitted shortly.

[Ian Smith - Diz]

Weren't Cats Eyes invented by a bloke who was driving along at night and a cat was walking towards him and the eyes of the cat were illuminated in his headlights? Hence Cats Eyes.

Now consider this. If the cat had been walking away from him, would he have invented the pencil sharpener?

[Twin Window]

From an old racing mag published April 1st, per chance?

[MichaelM]

Nascar, in a never ending pursuit of improving the "product", has announced that
all races will be run at night and the tracks will now have cat's eyes (with lasers
shooting out of them) delineating 3 separate lanes. Every 100 laps, the top 10 cars will
move up a lane. It will be like having 3 races in one by the end of the night enthused
Bill France Jr! Why this is as good an idea as my Chase for the Championship!

Reports of a toll booth on the backstretch to collect fees to pay for the "improvements"
have not been confirmed...

[petefenelon]

Derek Bennett was thought to have submitted a brilliant entry but was later found to have merely abandoned a welding torch on the road whJen on the way to the pub on a Friday night.

John and Charlie Cooper were rumoured to be submitting an entry but Owen Maddock was too busy playing the tuba, fornicating and building hovercraft - and in any case they're still arguing about the cost of it.

Jack Brabham submitted a modified version of the Cooper proposal that fires stones at slow cars.

Ferrari submitted an entry that in no way conformed to the design brief. It won.

After spending $800m/year, Toyota submitted a photocopy of the Ferrari design, which didn't work.

Williams merely submitted one sheet of paper with a UK Independence Party logo and "Hands Off Our Roads, Johnny Foreigner!" on it.

BRM's submission willl be ready in approximately 2015. Each cats' eye weighs approximately fifteeen tons and features a Rolls Royce and Associates nuclear reactor as used on hunter-killer submarines. It has tested promisingly at Folkingham Aerodrome and works by turning everythig in a five mile radius into gently-glowing ashes.

Honda's entry neither reflects nor transmits light, as light pollution is really bad, ok? But it does have a pretty paintjob.

[petefenelon]

McLaren's entry, which was deemed to be technically and economically superior to all the others and incorporated the latest discoveries in particle physics gleaned from running the Large Hadron Collider 24/7 for several months and employing a group of Nobel Laureates (or 'cheating', as the FIA term it) was rejected by the FIA for 'coming from Woking', 'being silver', 'being submitted on a Tuesday', and 'not being from Ferrari'.

OOooh. Bit of politics there.

[Kingsleyrob]

The short list of winners will be narrowed down to the submissions from McLaren and Ferrari.

Independent technical experts from around the world will agree that the McLaren entry is far superior in all aspects - aesthetics, reliability, technical innovation, cost, efficiency and potential longevity.

The three impartial competition judges, from Milan, Turin and Rome will declare the design from Ferrari the outright winner on the grounds that it looks good in red. : :

Well, you can't win 'em all.

Rob

[petefenelon]

Ron Tauranac submitted an entry that was in fact a burning firebrand, saying that 'our customers understand fire, it's been around for years and we can make a very high-quality fire.'

[petefenelon]

Adrian Reynard and Rick Gorne submitted a fully costed propsal showing how damage to cats eyes could be charged to the driver and the supply of spare parts could make Gorne, Reynard and the FIA multi-billionaires.

[AlanR]

Kerpen Kats Eyz developed a new standard, endorsed by their favourite son which had all safety experts purring at the launch. New, radical, and mightily effective, but flaws were soon apparent in the early testing stages - this new cat's eye would curiously damage any British car that accidentally drove too close. Despite this the experimentation continued, and the new and improved version proved its longevity at the highest standards, so much so that the FIA were forced to change the competition rules in order to give other manufacturers a chance of winning.

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Twin Window
From an old racing mag published April 1st, per chance?

Not that I know of Matey.

[MCS]

Originally posted by petefenelon
BRM's submission willl be ready in approximately 2015. Each cats' eye weighs approximately fifteeen tons and features a Rolls Royce and Associates nuclear reactor as used on hunter-killer submarines. It has tested promisingly at Folkingham Aerodrome and works by turning everythig in a five mile radius into gently-glowing ashes.

On a more serious note, when I started reading Roger's first post, I was minded of some of the recent stories regarding cat's eyes with speed cameras in them......ugh.

[Vitesse2]

Smokey Yunick's submission was a two-part design with a gap in the middle. A unique feature was a number of tiny "hands" which were designed to push water away from the lens. However, as it was built to only seven-eighths the size of the hole, it sank ....

[Bloggsworth]

After Cat's Eyes, the FIA will open a competition to re-invent the wheel..............................

[Paul Rochdale]

The funniest thread for ages

[Vitesse2]

Scuderia Toro Rosso came up with a design incorporating an old Red Bull can and several rejected ideas from Ferrari. It was very good in the wet.;)

[Allan Lupton]

Mohamed Al Fayad claimed that it was all a devilish plot by the Duke of Edinburgh to undermine him, since the cat was sacred in Egypt and Harrod's would also withdraw its advertising from the ITV F1 coverage.

[ensign14]

Otto Stuppacher was given the task of fitting the final versions. At the end of his first month on the job he had nearly fitted one.

[Vitesse2]

The Tyrrell entry was ruled illegal after tiny lead balls - which they said improved the cleaning process - were found in the water. Strangely, nobody could actually find where the rule was written down, but the entry was disqualified anyway ....

[2F-001]

A submission from Penske required the reservoirs to be mounted on towers high above the roadside, so that under gravity the pressure of the cleansing water would be increased.

[ensign14]

A couple of entries from Germany arrived in an apparently unfinished state, as they had not been painted. Although someone suggested the paint might have washed off in the first storm.

[cheapracer]

I encouraged one of my Chinese Auto Industry friends (Hung Lo) to enter this a couple of years ago.

Firstly a 3 week group tour for all managers of the car company's sections was organised to Australia's Outback with a grant from the local Foriegn affairs dept. who's number 1 coincedently has the same surname as my friend.

After the first night's stay in Dubbo it was reported by the Hotel manager to local police that some of his carpark catseyes had gone missing. About 4 weeks later Hung Lo summoned me for my opinion of their prototype "very proud of our original design" catseyes that looked like they had already had a suprising amount of testing.

After carefully inspecting them I was suprised at the high quality and announced that they were indeed the equal of anything I had seen back home in Oz.

After winning the competition based on foresaid quality but at a supply price that was 3 times lower than any other submission, 200,000 units were promptly ordered.

Upon recieving the first batch, upon inspection it was found that nothing more than silver frost paint was used for the reflective surface, only 120,000 glue pad sets had been supplied, 40,000 units were deformed beyond use, 15,000 were unpainted and all fitting instructions were in Chinese. Upon regeristing a complaint, the FIA were informed that it was the fault of the foreign design team the Company had consulted.

[David Beard]

Vanwall version...
Designed for Tony Vandervell by Chapman & Costin. Their ideas were constrained, however, in that they were required to utilise some existing parts from an earlier Ferrari based unit. Although it worked most of the time, this made the cats-eye assembly extraordinarily tall and ungainly looking. In fact it looked rather more like a traffic cone.

[Macca]

Mazda produced a series of prototypes which worked extremely well, but produced a very loud high-pitched noise due to the rotation of the main component, so were ruled out.........

Paul M

[roger ellis]

Volkswagen took a scatter gun approach to the problem by submitting no fewer than 7 proposals using the Group's different brand names.

The VW entry was well designed using high grade materials and could be produced at a competitve price.
The Audi design was identical but with a higher unit cost.
The Skoda entry was identical but with a lower unit cost.
The Seat design was identical but with a lower standard of construction.
The Bentley cat's eye bore a remarkable likeness to an existing 40 year old design.
The Lamborghini cat's eye? Kept under wraps until they find out what the Ferrari entry looks like.
Then there's the Bugatti... Not only was it massively over engineered with a capability that no one could ever fully use, but it's costs were exhorbitant.

[Paolo]

Mauro Forghieri dropped out in disgust after an heated argument with the stewards who would limit him to cat's eyes design only and not let him design the cars, the road and the scenery too.

Mike Gascoygne was paid untold billions to produce a design but failed to show any.

Adrian Newey produced a sleek, impressive design, unluckily too tight for the water to squeeze in. It was pretty good anyway.

[Bloggsworth]

I'm just amazed that the moderators haven't shut this thread down like they did the HADRO Collider one! Imean, we're having fun and nobody is being rude about anybody else.

[cheapracer]

Mike Coughlan from McLaren has submitted a photocopy of his design but so far has been unable to show his original work and until he does the design can not be accepted.

By the way has anyone heard from Nigel Stepney during the comp? He hasn't been heard of since about the same time Mike Coughlam submitted his entry.

[fines]

Harry Miller presented a set of cat's eyes machined from chrome-vanadium steel which held the lens (made from pure silver) by means of six tiny "fingers" that were notched and shackled to the underside of the device. The whole apparatus was sunk into a bronze casting which fit snugly into the roadside by means of an expanding ring made from a titanium-aluminum alloy, complete with two concentric hairpin springs on each of the four "corners", hewn from a 24-carate platinum block by specially trained midget blacksmiths, and then machined and polished to a mirror finish in his own shop. Miller quoted a price of $25,000 for a single cat's eye, or $35,000 for a front-drive example.

[fines]

Fred and Augie Duesenberg presented an ingenious design, in which the water for the self-cleaning mechanism was transmitted via a series of long, vertical rods that extended from the bottom of the apparatus to the injection device, and acted on a button of the pump in a series of horizontal movements. They called it a "water beam" Duesenberg, but the patent was bought by a waching machine manufacturer.

[fines]

Louis and Arthur Chevrolet presented a cheap solution by fitting a stock Model T Ford cat's eye with a double overhead reflector, but quarrelled over the credit for this design for the rest of their lifes. Both subsequently invented cat's eyes for airport usage, and again quarrelled over patent issues, with a third party making a fortune in producing them in the meantime.

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
Water was held in a spherical container ground from a solid brass ingot.

I'm not sure I believe this. For once I suspect the accuracy of your facts, Roger. Isn't it quite difficult to grind brass at all, let alone into a spherical shape?

[Vitesse2]

2008 is actually the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the AIACR's attempt to improve the then existing cat's eye. The job was given to a Belgian, but - despite being a definite improvement - it never progressed beyond the design stage even though almost all the people who saw the design thought it was a good idea. Press coverage was positive, to the extent that some journalists - aided by clever Nazi propaganda - seem to have persuaded themselves that the cat's eye actually existed.

1939 came and went and both designs were lost in the fog of war. But the Nazi propaganda remained ....

[2F-001]

Jim Hall's version was notable for being very firmly fixed to the road. It also dispensed with water systems altogether. The lenses or reflectors were to be cleaned by a roving vacuum cleaner.

[Bloggsworth]

Originally posted by David Beard


I'm not sure I believe this. For once I suspect the accuracy of your facts, Roger. Isn't it quite difficult to grind brass at all, let alone into a spherical shape?

Not if you use plenty of Absinthe as a lubricant............................


























Soluble oil on the brass is also helpful.

[Barry Boor]

Is it me - or is some of this thread not actually true....

[bradbury west]

Originally posted by Paolo
Adrian Newey produced a sleek, impressive design,

based on a perfectly preserved and well patinated original example, 1 of 12 it is believed, which he had been able purchase from a caring private collection. However, feeling that he was the man to test this item on the road, he managed to stuff it into the bank wrecking all semblance of originality. Since money can buy condition but not originality, it was "restored" to better than new/period condition.............
Roger Lund

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Is it me - or is some of this thread not actually true....

It might not seem so...

But maybe after someone posts details of André Citroën's entry it will be.

[Frank S]

Originally posted by 2F-001
Jim Hall's version was notable for being very firmly fixed to the road. It also dispensed with water systems altogether. The lenses or reflectors were to be cleaned by a roving vacuum cleaner.

A different Texan poked around among other entrants, selected the parts he liked best, had a few geniuses meld them together, and came up with the example that looked and worked best of all, and for the least money.

Of the 21,000 originally manufactured, only 98,050 are known to exist today.

[Huw Jadvantich]

Henry Ford presented a cat. It was black

Edsel Ford's market research proposed a Siamesed cat that could be seen from both directions but nobody liked the look of it

The current Ford organisation presented the balance sheet for several British catteries that they had picked the eyes out of and sold to an indian restaurant

[Kingsleyrob]

I understand from a reliable source that the British Govermnent are about to submit a design based 99.9% on the traditional Percy Shaw offering, on the basis that the new designs just don't have that traditional and dare I say it - nostalgic - feel to them.

Acknowledging that the new specification demands that they are self cleaning, each 'eye' will come complete with an individual until recently employed within the financial services industry, a bucket of water, and a squeegee.

We aim to put the 'human touch' back into road safety, an insider is reported to have said, 'at the same time reducing unemployment figures and giving these individuals a chance, at last, to do something worthwhile and in the public interest'...

Rob

[375 Plus]

After an alarming number of disappearances involving stray felines in and around the office of Ing. Chiti subsided, Autodelta produced a series of prototypes. These examples, though rather aesthetically pleasing(mostly so with the early models) and ably demonstrated for the review panel by a number of top technicians, failed to top all but a few tests. Eventually, they were awarded the FIA contract! However, this happened after all the other strong contenders lost interest and withdrew.

[Terry Walker]

Citroen proposed a self-leveliing height adjusting model, which hydropneumatically retracted below the road surface into a bucket of water. The hydropneumatic spheres were pressurised by the catseyes being pushed up and down by passing cars. However, those which didn't get run over a lot by passing cars tended to sink out of sight overnight.

[cheapracer]

A late entry has been submitted by Edward Turner.

Upon inspection the testers were bewildered that they could only see a simple, albeit heavy, alloy unit with reflective surface and no sign of Mr Turners reported wash cycle uniquely using vibration and oil rather than water. Mr Turner calmly mentioned "check my credentials, any product I design vibrates and emits oil automatically".

[Roger Clark]

Max Mosely announced today that the FIA were changing the rules in the interests of competition and all contestants would henceforth enter identical cat's eyes, supplied by the FIA. When asked how the winner would be decided he replied "the same way as we always do".

[Bloggsworth]

Originally posted by Kingsleyrob
I understand from a reliable source that the British Govermnent are about to submit a design based 99.9% on the traditional Percy Shaw offering, on the basis that the new designs just don't have that traditional and dare I say it - nostalgic - feel to them.

Acknowledging that the new specification demands that they are self cleaning, each 'eye' will come complete with an individual until recently employed within the financial services industry, a bucket of water, and a squeegee.

We aim to put the 'human touch' back into road safety, an insider is reported to have said, 'at the same time reducing unemployment figures and giving these individuals a chance, at last, to do something worthwhile and in the public interest'...

Rob

And Percy Shaw III Jr., seeing one of the squegee brigade bending over to clean a cat's eye was minded to invent a device for sharpening fence-posts............................

[stevewf1]

Originally posted by Twin Window
From an old racing mag published April 1st, per chance?

Memories... When Road & track published their "April Fool's" issue - every 10 years or so?

[skennedy55]

I am new to the forum but I could not let this thread go by without contributing.

In Australia, where roads are a state responsibility, NSW had managed to persuade Victoria to use a design based on an old Scottish standard with a diameter of 5’ 0” and the Victorian government eagerly commenced the process to design and produce cat’s eyes for Victorian roads. Unfortunately, in the meantime there was a change of government in NSW and the new government decided to use the new English standard of 4’8 ½” and rolled out their cat’s eyes on this basis. This was a real disaster for travel between the states. At the NSW/Vic border, Victorian drivers were forced leave their cars in a holding pen and transfer to a car configured to see NSW’s cat’s eyes, and vice-versa.

Of course this madness did not stop there. Queensland and Western Australia argued that, as they had many more miles of roads to service they could only afford cat’s eyes of 3’6” in diameter. South Australia had a 'bob each way' and on some roads there were cat’s eyes of 5’0”, 4’8 ½” and 3’6”! They also developed special roadside stations where cars could be quickly modified to see the cat’s eyes on single gauge roads.

Some semblance of order was eventually brought to bear on this whole sorry mess when Highway One was equipped with standard gauge cat’s eyes, enabling continuous travel from Brisbane all the way to Perth!

Cheers

Steve

[ensign14]

Surely Australian cat's eyes are upside down?

Anyone seen the SEFAC version? Didn't reflect much. I could SEFAC all.

[Paolo]

The fate of Ricardo Divila's entry will remain in the annals of road safety as a memento to future catseye builders.

Divila was hired by an Italian company to produce a new design and obliged, relying on decades of experience to turn out a flawless piece of engineering.

Then he went on holiday for a well deserved rest.

When he came back he found that his design had been reproduced with minor modifications such as:

replacing titanium with lead
aluminium with firewood
carbon fiber with plasticine

Divila consequently distanced himself from the whole affair, putting a wall of lawyers between himself and the "thing".

The prototype was sold anyway to a new Italian company, which paired it with an original W shaped water tank of interesting design. They claimed cardboard was an ideal material to build it and they hoped to sell watertanks to the competition in the future.

Nobody will ever know how would have this catseye fared: despite many trials and the desperate last ditch attempt to replace the cardboard water tank with a standard one, it always broke to pieces during the 15 metres trip from the container to the road.