Question for those more familiar with 1960's cars...

The statement from the chief of design:
"We set out to make the first FR (front engined rear wheel drive) car with four wheel independent suspension to be built in Japan?"

This excludes De Dion and solid beam axle.

I don't see the resolution statement later in the text. I fully expect something like "So-And-So company beat us to market...".

So who was the first?

I'd say Bellett....

A cursory Googling revealed nothing else of note.

Hino Contessa was earlier but was rear-engined...

So yeah. I'm going for it.

I was hoping the guy would provide some sort of list of European sports cars that the suspension design or body shape was inspired by. But no.

I'm up to the part where they put the company president and design chiefs into the production mockup, took it out on the test track, and accidentally flipped it over onto the roof. Crushed the roof and windshield, and put someone in the infirmary for a week.

OK, the article went chronologically, and seems to be written assuming that the reader already knows the more basic parts of the story (the general story not well known outside Japan). Filtering out all the non-Bellett and model development content, the short version looks something like:

In 1960, they decided to build a small car. Rootes did not allow any shared mechanisms. So they decided to see if they could do better than Rootes on their own. The group was mostly in their early 30’s. and described as brilliant, but not experienced in automotive design.
They tested and examined Bluebird, Corona, VW, Fiat, Morris, and Hillman. They determined their layout would be FR with four wheel independent suspension, because the roads were rough. This would be the first Japanese FR, four wheel independent suspension car.
Some mention of choosing bucket seats and improving the interior. Some mention on improving the steering over the Hillman.
They presented the prototype on the test track in 1962 and drove carefully. A second group got into the car for a test drive and flipped the car over on its roof. They decided not to change the swing axle suspension design, but remedy the problem with the existing design. One of the team (Akira Watanabe) came up with a “diagonal link”, by attaching a leaf spring beneath the differential housing and under the rear axle tubes, mounting it on rubber blocks. This solved the problem, but they went on to test dozens of spring combinations and chose one that provided the best combination of grip and safety.
Something about developing a flexible coupler for the steering column.
They presented the car in 1963, took it out on a new section of highway and set a top speed of 140 km/h, matching the top speed of Corona and Bluebird.
In 1965, Ralph Nader (social activist) made public accusations that General Motor’s Corvair was unsafe due to the swing axle rear suspension and a tendency of the vehicle to flip over. This was two years after the Bellett was released. A year later, at the insistence of the sales team, they released the Type B with the solid rear axle.


Adding general information from the internet which may or may not be accurate:

The three examples of front engine, rear wheel drive, four wheel independent suspension European cars available in 1960 would be Lotus Elite (1958) and Triumph Herald (1959). Jaguar E Type is later, 1961. Only the Triumph is swing axle style, the other two have the additional pivot points at the outer end. But none of these have the axles enclosed in tubes. The VW mentioned in the article does. Triumph added a diagonal trailing arm to their suspension (later with the Spitfire), while the VW rear trailing arms sort of twist (rather than pivot) on arms that are mounted perpendicular to the axles, on the ends of the torsion rods. So the Bellett rear suspension design, with the axles enclosed in the diagonally swinging rear trailing arms, is halfway between the VW and what Triumph would develop four or five years later. And the Bellett adds coil springs on shocks, instead of leaf springs or torsion rods.

On the “Diagonal Link”.
These would later be called “Camber Compensators”, “Swing Spring”, or “Transverse Mounted Rear Spring”. This is the leaf spring mounted under the rear axle to prevent the rear wheels from tucking and to transfer force on the suspension from the outside wheel to the inside wheel.
The Triumph information says that this was not initially a problem, but became a problem as the engine size and power level was increased with model upgrades. The Herald started out with 1.0 liter and 36 HP. The Spitfire with 1.15 liter and 63 HP. The problem apparently became an issue by the time they reached 75 HP with the Spitfire Mark III and 95 HP GT6 and Vitesse straight six variant. They added a “decambering device” to the GT6 and Vitesse in 1969, and then the Spitfire Mark IV in 1970. Digging a little more, the Triumph community states this was invented by the US Standard-Triumph Competition Manager “Kas” Kastner, who developed it as a retrofit around 1968, and it was adopted by the factory for standard equipment in 1971.
The Chevrolet Corvair starts out in 1960 with a 80 HP flat six. By 1962, they have performance models up to 150 HP. Chevrolet added the “transverse mounted leaf spring” to the Corvair in 1964. (Ironically Ralph Nader publishes his book in 1965, one year after the problem had been solved).
As far as I can tell, every single Bellett with the swing axle rear suspension that was ever produced, started out with the leaf spring under the rear axle as standard equipment, from the first one to rollout in 1963, even though this innovation was invented by Chevy in 1963/64 and then again invented by Triumph in 1968/69. The smallest engine in a Bellett was 58 HP. No one says it, but they start with a British sports car chassis and suspension, put in four seats and a hard top, and an engine with double the power output. They started out at the design limit that Triumph would not reach for another five or six years.
The Japanese magazine article reveals the details that they found the limit early in product development, on the first official test drive presented to the management. They immediately found a remedy. And, that remedy became standard equipment with the first car produced.

Thanks for the great research and info, JT.

Always enjoy a good read regarding historic car development.


Cheers

OZ

I know there is a rich history to be found. It seems they never thought anyone outside Japan would be interested. And it has always been an irritation that we have basically none of the history compared to the history of other marques that someone decided were in demand enough to justify translating and printing.

I'm not done with the translation work on this one yet. I finished the first four pages that were supposed to be about the Bellett development. I started on the next four pages that is supposed to be about the second generation Bellett.

The first half did not contain what I was looking for, which was something like history of the Bellett design written like all the articles about the styling of the Piazza. Something about what inspired the body shape.
But, it did have a lot of surprises and eye openers. Giugiaro had more to do with nearly everything after the Bellett than anyone ever suspected, and not just the 117 Coupe and Piazza. There was a full size sedan replacement for the Bellel that was abandoned between design and production. Isuzu and Hillman did not part on happy terms. Nissan Cherry cars were build by Isuzu at the Fujisawa Plant.
I would like to get it looked over before putting together a full translation of the article.

And some of the names popping up are leading me back to references in other articles and on the internet that I did not understand before. I may not have much more of an explanation beyond bullet points and a time line, but I will have a list of the people who did the work, and at least one of them is still alive and has an email address.

With only a few sentences done, the second part promises to continue the surprises. A joint project with Mitsubishi. Styling by Giugiaro. And another joint project with Subaru.

Also thanks for the great read Gerry

I'm not sure how this post came about; you started by quizzing us in the off-topic section, but now this reads more like an awesome (if incomplete) history of the Bellett; you've translated some titbits we knew nothing about.

Once you're done, we'll need to compile this information a maybe put it up on Wikipedia (your favourite site!) to try to improve the relatively lack lustre amount of Bellett info that is on there.

I imagine that the time for finding and interviewing the design and development staff is over due to their age; and let's not even start on the language issue.

Anyway, great work JT; I'm really happy that you've plonked that info somewhere, even if it's more on-topic (ie Belletts) than off topic.

Looking forward to the next installment!


Cheers,

Dave

You're right. I started plowing into the article and got to the reference about the first front engine, rear wheel drive car with independent suspension, and wanted to find out if they were the first more quickly than I could plow through to the answer (which wasn't included in the article anyway).

I think some of these articles are being done because this is about the last opportunity to talk to the people involved with the design and building of the cars before they pass on.

There are at least two authors, and the one writing the second section is using some really confusing sentence structure.
There are several paragraphs and charts showing the beginning and endings of manufacturer alliances for Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Daihatsu, Chrysler, and GM. It reads like a bunch of kindergarten children, all very short friendships which change fast and frequently. The only one conspicuously absent is Mazda.

The second generation Bellett development is confusingly written.
All I can tell so far is that the design chief's for Isuzu and Mitsubishi were friends and allowed each other to look over their work. Both had hired Giugiaro for input on the designs. It seems there was a theme to his work then, just like the Aces cars were all wedge shapes. In the 1960's, everything he drew looked like the 1969 Mitsubishi Galant. There was some effort between the design chiefs to bring the appearance of the cars closer together. Possibly the idea that they would build the chassis side by side on the same assembly line, and offer the same vehicle as the Galant with Mitsubishi engine, and Bellett with Isuzu engine.

I would really like to get it looked over, and got a little side tracked on the project.

And I haven't even gotten to the third part, with the van.

So man where is this info from? The Neko Publishing book or some Nostalgic Hero issues?

Cheers,

Dave

I didn't realize that hadn't been mentioned.
Nostalgic Hero #142.
The article is in a series called "Dig Out Scoop!", which covers little known details of auto history from various manufacturers. One writer mentions first learning about the Mitsubishi-Isuzu tie when researching the Galant development in 1993. I have not found the name of that article or which issue it would have been in.

At the moment there is reference to Harry Ricard developing the Mitsubishi engine.
This is the English pioneer of the internal combustion engine. It seems he was called in as a consultant at various points by nearly every car manufacturer in the world, and from the review of his biography: "Engines and Enterprise: The Life and Work of Sir Harry Ricardo":


I had previously mentioned that there was a giant step in engine technology in 1969 with the introduction of DOHC engines by the Japanese manufacturers, most in four cylinder, some in six cylinder, most in two valve per cylinder, a few in four valve per cylinder. At this point, I would have to conclude that the G161W was the result of Isuzu's ties with and study of English and Italian examples such as Lotus and Alfa Romeo. But the Nissan, Toyota, and Mitsubishi, attempting to catch up with Isuzu, hired Ricardo to design the GR8/S20, L Series, 8R and 8R-G, and M Series engines.