Radiator Blinds

[tony]

Sorry for thread drift.
When I see an A35 today I wonder how we got 4 people, 4 packs and maybe 3 pairs of ski's on a roof rack and drove 200 miles after work to the ski fields in 5 1/2 hours.
No wonder the poor thing was so slow.
Tony.

[TedTaylor]

More thread drift sorry.

Did my first ever rally in a A30 - I was navigating. We won!!!!

I then went on the 948 and 1200 Heralds which I drove and did OK sometimes. Read into that what you will .......

MUT

[Dazzer]

My DKW 3-6 had a canvas blind on a pull rod and ive only recently thought of fitting something to the 2000 rally car. The 2000 even with hot thermostat in winter over cools on the move. Tried everything to cure it over ten years but now accept thats just how it is. An advantage in summer yes. Not so on winter rallies!

[Dazzer]

Thread drift 3. Spookily the chap who helps with our auditing ( not a car obsessive like me) mentioned that he still had his A30 from his youth locked up in the garage where he left it decades ago.

[Jonathan Lewis]

They were really a hangover from the days when cars didn't have very good thermostats, or none at all, and relied on mostly thermosyphon for coolant circulation. So regulating the radiator temperature was often the only effective way of management in cold weather.

Some prewar cars (R-R and Bentley spring to mind, but I think others as well) used thermostatic shutters in front of the radiator matrix to achieve a similar effect. Think I remember seeing something similar on a 1960s/70s truck (Foden?) as well.

But, as you rightly note, with a properly-functioning thermostat, the need for such devices has become largely superfluous...