The Bostrom organization was schooled in the principles of human engineering-the science of designing machines to fit the abilities and limitations of the human beings who must operate them, so that man and machine can work together as a team with maximum safety, efficiency, and productivity.
In addition, the company's engineering department had always worked closely with the Society of Automotive Engineers. Bos-trom's chief engineer was and is a member of the SAE's Ride Comfort Committee, which constantly researches problems of ride motion.
Studies made by experts in human engineering of reaction to vibration and shock, and by the SAE on the average ride motion of trucks and tractors, convinced Bostrom management that there was a great need for a seat that would help the driver to operate his machine with maximum efficiency. The new type of seat would have to be scientifically designed to protect the driver's health and comfort, and prevent the excessive fatigue which was a constant safety hazard.
Starting in the early 1950's, Bostrom initiated medical studies to ascertain the relationship between spinal and other health disorders and truck and tractor driving. One study was directed to 1,474 orthopedic specialists throughout the country. Another was concentrated in the state of Iowa, an area with the highest farm-tractor census, where 1,420 general practitioners were contacted.
Returns on the studies, running close to 30 per cent, indicated the high order of medical interest in the problem. Among disorders reported by the doctors to be caused in whole or part by rough riding were sacroiliac strain, hemorrhoids, chronic fatigue, herniated discs, nervous irritability, constipation, spinal and lower back injuries, and even stomach ulcers.
The importance of this research can be gauged by the fact that there are more than 10,000,000 men in the United States alone who daily operate trucks and tractors. Additional millions of women and youngsters on farms also drive tractors at least part of the time.
All of these studies definitely indicated that the most important feature of the seat Bostrom was seeking to develop would be its ability to protect the truck and tractor operator from the damaging jolts and shocks caused by excessive ride vibration.
In the course of its years of experimentation, the company's engineers devised an electronic recording mechanism which makes it possible actually to measure vibration and ride motion. This recorder was used throughout the development period.
After five years of intensive experimentation, the company was ready with its new product.
Based on a tensional rubber spring suspension system, the new Bostrom truck seat, the Level Ride 80, isolated the driver from most of the ride vibration. For the first time it gave the truck driver the smoothness of a passenger-car ride. The same principle was also built into a tractor seat, with similar advantages.
The suspension system transmitted only a small part of the energy impact of rough-ride motion. It leveled out most of the vibration before it reached the driver. Tension on the springs was adjusted to exact weight of the driver by turning the knob of a calibrated gauge.
When the product was ready, Bostrom consulted with our agency on plans for introducing it. The public relations program was to be the forerunner of the company's total selling effort on the Level Ride 80. It was to serve as the means of informing truck and tractor manufacturers, transport unions, and the general public of the great advance made by Bostrom with its new product over conventional seating. Public relations work would serve to spark trade interest in the new seat. It would precede and be supplemented only by such other merchandising tools as advertising and direct sales effort.
The problem was first to increase the automotive industry's awareness of the vital importance of the rough-ride problem. Then the problem was to pre-sell Bostrom's new seating equipment as the best available solution. Our plan was to introduce the product through a "live" demonstration in the heart of the automotive world-Detroit.
At our request the company converted a standard truck into a field-demonstration unit. It was designed to enable reporters covering the field test to experience for themselves the actual feeling of riding in a Bostrom seat as against riding in a conventional truck seat. The demonstration was synchronized so at the same time they would participate in the type of field and laboratory tests that had been conducted over the years by the company's engineering staff.
It was recognized that, ideally, the best demonstration was for the subjects to experience the total psychological and physical environment of a truck driver. Since this was impractical, the test truck was built to duplicate this environment as completely as possible.
There were four conventional seats on one side of the truck and four Bostrom seats on the other. Each was set up behind a simulated steering wheel. Each seat also was hooked up so that an electronic tape recording could be made of an individual's ride-vibration pattern.
In this way, the introduction of the Bostrom seat also served as the first public demonstration of the scientific measurement of ride-comfort motion.
Invitations to the demonstration went to automotive editors of the Detroit dailies, editors of all automotive publications headquartered in Detroit, and wire service and news-magazine representatives in Detroit.
The press was advised that a bus would be parked in front of the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel in downtown Detroit at 11:30 A.M. on the day of the meeting. When the party assembled, the bus drove them to the attractive, colonial Dearborn Inn, located in the vicinity of the Ford Rotunda in Dearborn. After a brief cocktail period, the part)' was taken to the "proving ground" several miles away. In groups of eight the reporters climbed into the test truck to experience personally the difference between a Bostrom ride and a conventional truck ride. The course was an unpaved dirt road, with more than ordinary bumps and depressions. It covered roughly half a mile.
Going out, half the group rode on the starboard side where there were four Bostrom seats in position. On the way back they changed places with the other four and had a chance to experience the same ride on conventional seats. Not only did they have an opportunity for this subjective experience, but because of the hookup to electronic tapes from each position the reporters were handed two tapes, one showing the vibrations of their ride in the Bostrom seat, the other of their ride in the conventional seat.
Reaction was extremely favorable at this point, and the only sour note was sounded by a television cameraman who found some difficulty in showing the "difference" pictorially.
