Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Structural detail
Patent
1999-07-06
2000-10-10
Pape, Joseph D.
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Structural detail
296 264, B60J 700
Patent
active
06129411&
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a powered road vehicle comprising a replaceable, and thus variable, rear body mounting.
Road vehicles normally have a permanent body structure associated with the vehicle to allow the transport of commodities and/or people, for example. These vehicles are provided with non-variable bodies.
A further category of vehicles provides so-called swap bodies, i.e. the rear bodies of such vehicles can be replaced by other bodies within a relatively short time, these bodies being designed in different ways for various applications. Such interchangeable bodies exist in increasing numbers in the field of big commercial vehicles, because they allow a parked body to be loaded or unloaded independently of the presence of the powered carriage.
Vehicles comprising variable rear bodies have been known primarily from the field of trucks and commercial vehicles, mainly in relation to swap bodies, i.e. bodies that can be placed easily onto an existing carriage (including the drive engine and the driver's cab) and can also be removed easily therefrom. The purpose of such a system is to enable a powered unit (carriage including the drive engine and driver's cab) to utilise a plurality of variable bodies. In this manner, a parked variable body may be loaded and unloaded while the powered unit is transporting other variable bodies. This organisation saves time as the powered unit is in use during the loading and unloading of the body, and it saves capital as it is not necessary to purchase a separate powered unit for each variable body. Moreover, the prior art vehicle body mountings exclusively constitute mountings that do not communicate with the inner space of the vehicle.
The use of variable rear bodies in the form of swap bodies is very easy in the context of said types of trucks and commercial vehicles since these vehicles have an extremely stable carriage (including the engine and driver's cab) on which the variable bodies can be mounted easily. There is no interference with a body structure such as that of a car or light commercial vehicle.
Conversely, the use of variable bodies for smaller vehicles has been realised only in the form of studies and single pieces. While the concept as such is obvious and logical, its implementation causes considerable problems with respect both to technical design and financial aspects.
An object of the invention is to provide a technical solution enabling the use of variable rear bodies for smaller powered road vehicles, preferably the size of cars and smaller commercial vehicles.
Another object of the invention is that the variable rear bodies should not only be transportable in the form of swap bodies, but they should be able to form part of the vehicle body when mounted thereon, such that the inner space of a variable rear body mounting may form a space integral with the driver's and/or passengers' space of the base vehicle.
The prior art has already provided basic technical solutions also in this field allowing the conversion of a normal car into a cabriolet or coupe, for example. In the prior art, however, the variable bodies are generally mounted on the body structure of the base vehicle, preferably on the side and roof portions thereof, which have to be reinforced accordingly or supplemented by support structures.
The intrinsic serious drawback of such designs is that they require completely different body designs--as compared to conventional vehicle bodies--for transferring and receiving the forces of added conversion bodies. The relatively soft car body structure can either carry only light body mountings, or when designed to accommodate heavier body mountings, it requires solid reinforcements which are costly and heavy.
One of several prior art examples is represented by the Nissan Exa sports car of 1986, in which the rear body mounting behind the targa roll bar can be replaced such as to produce a coupe variation, a cabriolet variation and a sports combination. However, these interchangeable rear bodies represent only extremely light, small mountings of m
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International Search Report.
Betz Markus
Neff Thomas
Teller Stefan
CD Car Development GmbH
Pape Joseph D.
Patel Kiran
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