Why the front panel is called "torpedo"

Continuing the theme of Week simple questions.

"Torpedo boat", "torpedo tube", "torpedo attack" - such phrases are not uncommon in the history books of naval operations. But "self-propelled underwater weapons" does aboard a car that is not going to go on the attack on the battleship.

Source - avto.vesti.ru





It would seem that "front panel" - a simple and understandable to all the combination of two well-known words. Why should they not be limited? But the owners of a variety of vehicles and then you hear - "torpedo" "torpedo" ... And the origin of this informal term opaque: what is common can be at the front of the car with the torpedo, which the submarine released towards the enemy ship?

It is said that the French term torpille and words derived from it in other languages ​​(including our "Torpedo") motorists at various times used in different ways. For example, in the early twentieth century, they called streamlined cigar-shaped body. This fact does not need much explanation - it is obvious that his body resembled a form of the very naval torpedoes - but also to clarify the dashboard does not help.

In the twenties, thirties and forties word Torpedo occurred in the names of many brands of cars. Perhaps the most striking of these was the American Tucker Torpedo, production of which began in 1947. Attention to it has attracted not only the dynamic body shape, but the front panel. More precisely, its absence: All instruments and switches were grouped around the steering wheel and all the space between the front seats and the engine shield was given at the disposal of passengers. However, and this information does not clarify the issue we are interested in. As the fashion of the word for the front panel, could enter the vehicle, which the panel did not look like the absolute most of the other cars - as those sold in those years, and produced now?

On the cars front of the Tucker Torpedo in the current sense of the word it was not at all.

Therefore, the appearance of the origins of the term "torpedo" can not be found in the names of the cars, and the company name. More precisely, one of companies operating in Germany in the mid-twentieth century and specialized in the manufacture of automobile devices. As you might guess, the company was called the Torpedo. Its devices are often met on cars of different brands, so the first word "torpedo" were used to refer to the dashboard, and then - and the entire front panel.



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