Miguel Sánchez
At La Escudería we usually give a lot of importance to the sound of the engines. And while it is true that some sound like a true symphony ... When your car is equipped with a good sound system depending on what engine it is worth. But beware, not all are the same. If you want to enjoy truly immersive sound inside the cabin, you need a quality system. Systems like the ones it manufactures Angry.
It has been like an advertising lead, eh? Nothing more far from reality. And the reason is simple: Bose doesn't need us to advertise it because, within the car audio, It has already been an institution for years. But nevertheless…
There is an unsuspected world where despite having been a really leading edge, it has not managed to take off: the suspensions.
Yes, you read it right. And it is that towards 1980 the Bose engineers realized that the electromagnetic systems with which they equipped their speakers had a promising future, making the driving experience more comfortable and dynamic. And all this spurred on because the director of the company had a bad experience with the grip of his last car! Anyway, let's put this whole story in order ...
BOSE SUSPENSIONS: COMFORT AND SPORTSMANSHIP
Genius often comes from anger; well, the purest and simplest and pissed off. In fact, it was what happened in the late 70s to Love bose -at the time founder of the sound company- when the suspensions of his new car did not stop playing tricks on him. We do not know what the model was, but what we do know is that the struggle for to achieve a system where the ride comfort of a Citroën DS is combined with the grip of an Audi Quattro ... It is almost a chimera!
A chimera that, as if he were a Don Quixote of vibrations, Amar Bose prepared to conquer. To do this, he put a large part of his research department to work on Project Sound, the slightly suspicious name for the accounts department that has been taking generous sums for about 10 years. You know, the eternal dispute between the creativity of engineers and the rigor of accountants; a struggle that is almost always resolved with the former working behind the back of the latter.
However, and although the world of dampers may seem very far from that of sound, all this was more reasonable than it seems at first glance. And it is that Amar Bose realized that the same electromagnetic wave technology used in the speakers could be put into practice in a suspension scheme capable of 'read the road '.
So things, the system was tested in collusion with the Lexus brand. It equipped several units of its LS400 -luxury saloon introduced in 1989- with the new Bose electromagnetic damper system. This mix promised to be truly revolutionary, being able to definitively unite ride comfort where "Leaked" all bump with the grip of a sports car. In short, something dreamed of for a powerful luxury saloon.
AND DON QUIXOTE ... CRASHED AT THE MILL.
Watching the videos with which we illustrate the text it is almost impossible not to be curious to get into one of those cars and feel the effect "flying carpet". Where a normal model would bounce like a buggy through the dunes ... The Lexus equipped with the Bose system remains the same. stable enough for the Queen of England to drink her tea without fear of staining her skirt. Not to mention the steepness in the curves, which takes them almost without flinching.
Still surprising today, even more so when the technical data leaked to date is very scarce. We imagine that these are based on a subtle mix of pneumatic elements, a large amount of computing and a series of sensors located on the front capable of "read" road, thus anticipating the necessary movements of a suspension to keep the car horizontal.
In the end ... Everything was a wonderful work of engineering. Why? Because Bose couldn't sell the system to any auto company. Not even those dedicated to the manufacture of splendid high-end sedans wanted to know anything about suspensions that, despite being fascinating, they were terribly heavy and expensive to manufacture and assemble in series.
Anyway, where there was fire, there is always ashes: Bose used much of the knowledge acquired in the manufacture of driver's seats for commercial vehicles. Have you ever ridden on a bus where, while you are bouncing in your seat, the driver goes like "Floating" on an armchair that moves like a fluffy cloud at sunset? That's the system.
In addition, this past November a North American company has just acquired the rights to this technology to experiment with its development. And all this after receiving an investment of about 100 million dollars on account of research in computer systems applied to the automotive industry. So… who knows? Perhaps in a few years this marvel will reach the series cars and we can go down the road like Aladdin: flying on a soft carpet.
