We have been just lately amazed by Porsche’s new Active Ride system, which nullified roll and pitch in a 2.4-tonne Panamera Turbo, even at monitor speeds.

Twenty years in the past, we have been equally impressed by novel suspension from a supply we’d by no means have anticipated: Bose.

In the Porsche system, every damper is actuated by a sensor-fed unit, inside which electrical motors drive hydraulic pumps to decrease or increase the wheel, thereby retaining the automotive’s physique stage always.

In the Bose system, above every wheel the place you’ll usually discover a coil spring and damper was a linear motor containing coils and a magnet.

With present utilized, this could increase or decrease the wheel as a lot as 20cm from the automotive’s physique – greater than 100 occasions a second if required. The present got here from an influence amplifier, in response to alerts from a sensor-fed laptop operating Bose’s personal algorithms. Like the Porsche system, then, this was proactive, not reactive.

The automotive’s weight, in the meantime, was supported by torsion bars and MacPherson struts on the entrance and wishbones on the rear, and there was a damper inside every wheel to stop extreme bouncing.

If any of this sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of the algorithm-controlled electromagnetic pulsing is how an audio speaker cone works, simply on a a lot smaller scale, whereas the ability amplifier makes use of switching strategies from audio amplifiers.

The unbiased motion of the wheels prevented pitching and rolling – and even enabled the automotive to press into the bottom after which actually bounce over an impediment! It might even have banked the automotive into turns, like some trains, however checks revealed the sensation made drivers do harmful issues.

Bose had fitted its system to a Mk2 Lexus LS. This is a limo that rides extraordinarily easily anyway on its normal metal springs, so watch Bose’s demonstration here and you may be shocked by how nice the development is over any floor.