OBJECT 03: THE QUEEN
OBJECT 03: THE QUEEN MARY “It was our graduate engineers who came up with this,” says Alex Heslop, the Chief Engineer for the All-New Discovery. “It shows what you can do when you approach an engineering problem with absolutely no preconceptions about what the solution should be, or has been in the past. They managed to significantly improve the car’s performance in a critical area and save weight by using something that’s already there. It’s brilliant.” He’s describing the ‘labyrinth’ and the ‘rabbit hole’, the key parts of the new air intake system that allows Discovery to wade through water up to 900mm deep. That’s 200mm deeper than before, and easily the best in class. To do it, the new car doesn’t actually breathe through its grille. Instead, it can suck all the air it needs through what’s referred to as the ‘Queen Mary Funnel’, the 6mm gap where the bonnet meets the front wings: the highest usable opening on the car. That ‘clamshell’ bonnet has long been part of the Discovery’s design language, and it serves a functional purpose too. After being sucked through the gap, the air is drawn into the tiny space between the inner and outer skins of the bonnet. The complex path it follows, the ‘labyrinth’, slows it, forcing it to drop any moisture. It then flows out of the back of the bonnet and straight down the ‘rabbit hole’ in the engine bay, passing through another water filter before being allowed through to the engine. “Of course we thought, ‘what if something should block that gap?’” says Alex. Snow-packing presented the greatest risk. But they tested it in the wind tunnel, and then went to the Arctic and drove for hundreds of miles directly behind a large truck in fresh snow. The new system passed easily. “The new design is so good that it will actually wade rather deeper than 900mm,” Alex admits. “But when you go deeper than that, the back end starts to float. You can open the rear doors to let some water in, and the back wheels will find traction on the riverbed again. Yes, we have actually tested that. But we would not recommend that our customers do – it plays havoc with the carpets. 900mm will be more than enough for anyone.” 44
RATAN TATA 45
