AUTOMOBILE WINDOW STRUCTURE Background of the Invention This invention relates to the field of auto¬ mobile window structures and particularly to a structure including a side window having an upper fixed transparent portion and a lower movable portion retractable ^■ into the door panel- It is common to provide built-in ventilation systems in modern automobiles, especially those that are highly styled with very rounded or non-planar door panels, and such ventilation systems almost make movable side windows in the doors unnecessary, especially if the auto¬ mobile includes an adequate air conditioning system. How¬ ever, there are still occasions when at least a small movable window panel is required, as for example to allow the driver to pay tolls and to communicate with service station operators. The need for a movable panel is especially great in the case of automobiles having so- called gull-wing doors that are pivoted along axes in the roof of the car so that the doors lift up for ingress and egress of passengers. It may be almost impossible, and is certainly unwieldy, to have to open such doors in order to pay tolls or communicate with persons outside the car.

Heretofore it has been considered that, either the side window panel should be movable downwardly from the very top of the side window to a point of. total re¬ traction within the door or els-e part of the side window panel should be movable in a fore and aft direction. In the case of a vertically movable window, it is necessary that there be sufficient room in the lower part of the door panel to accommodate the full vertical dimension of the window, and some doors may not have that much space, especially gull-wing doors. In the case of windows that have horizontally movable panels, only half of the win¬ dow can be slid open, either from the front or from the back. This may make it necessary either for the driver to lean forward to communicate with people outside the car, if the front panel is movable, or may make it necessary for the driver to undergo some inconvenient contortions to extend toll or other payments through the rear part of the window, if it is the rear panel that is movable. Objects and Summary of the Invention It is one of the objects of the present inven¬ tion to provide a side window having a fixed upper portion and a vertically movable lower portion that retracts into the door panel when desired.

It is a further object of the invention to provide a window retraction and extension mechanism that

can be accommodated in a door panel of minimum height so as not to interfere unduly with retraction downwardly of a movable part of the window.

In accordance with the present invention a side window in the door of an automobile has an upper portion ^' that is fixed to the remainder of the door and a lower portion that can be retracted into the lower part of the door panel between the outer wall, which is usually of metal, and the inner wall, which is usually upholstered. In order to allow the greatest possible height of the movable portion of the window, the fore and aft extent of the window may be substantially less than the total transparent area, so that the forwardmost part of the movable portion of the window may be substantially behind the forwardmost part of the transparent portion of the window, and the rearwardmost part of the movable portion may be well forward of the rearwardmost part of the transparent portion. This allows a maximum transparent area with concomitant good visibility in all directions and yet provides an opening in the lower central part of the side window area in a location that is convenient for extension of the driver's arm to pay tolls and to commu¬ nicate with those outside the automobile.

Further in accordance with the invention, the movable part of the window slides on tracks that are shaped

to conform in general to the curvature of the door so as to accommodate a window having substantial tumble home. A drive motor is mounted in the door at an angle to a transmission member that can transmit force longitudinally around a bend. This allows the drive motor to have an almost horizontal axis so that it can engage the longitu¬ dinally movable member along a lower portion of the door between the inner and outer surfaces thereof. The force transmitting means is sufficiently flexible to bend within a constraining elbow, and the upper end of the force transmitting member is attached to the lower part of the window or to a channel in which the window rests so that the window can either be pulled downwardly into the opaque part of the door panel or pushed generally upwardly into a closed position against the fixed, upper part of the window. A waterproof, preferably transparent channel, is provided around the opening in the upper, fixed part of the window to receive the uppermost edges of the movable window to provide a waterproof and draft-free engagement when the movable part of the window is fully raised. Brief Description of the Drawings Fig. 1 is a side view of a door of a car having a window structure according to the present invention. Fig. 2 is a generally cross-sectional view of the door in Fig. 1 showing some of the internal components

associated with the movable window and the raising and lowering thereof.

Detailed Description of the Invention Fig. 1 shows the left hand door 11 of a car with a substantially vertically movable side window 12 constructed according to the invention. The door 11 is of the gull-wing type with a portion 13 that forms part of the roof of the car and is pivoted by means (not shown) near the center line of the roof 14. The lower part of the door is an opaque panel 16 which may be of metal or a suitable plastic, such as a glass reinforced plastic (GRP) of a type capable of withstanding stresses typically encountered by automobile body panels.

Except for the portion 13, the upper part of the door 11 is mostly transparent and includes, in addition to the movable pane 12, a fixed pane 17 that extends around three sides of the movable pane 12. In accordance with the usual practice for streamlined automobiles, all parts of the door 11 are curved to conform to the central part of the body of the car 17. This curvature is not entirely cylindrical but is almost so. This does not mean that it has a single longitudinal axis, but that all of the horizontal generating lines are fairly straight in the fore and aft direction. The curvature is convex from the outside point of view, and there is considerable tumble home of the movable and fixed window panes 12 and 17 toward the roof portion 13.

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The longitudinal extent of the movable pane 12 is substantially less than that of the fixed pane 17. That is, the forwardmost portion 19 of the movable pane 12 is substantially rearward of the forwardmost portion 21 of the 5 fixed pane 17. In a similar manner, the rearwardmost portion 22 of the movable pane 12 is substantially ahead of the rearwardmost portion of the fixed pane 17. As a result, it is necessary to provide space within the door panel 16 to accommodate a large movable pane. This has the advantage

¹⁰ that the door lock 23 can be placed in a location that would otherwise interfere with any downward retraction of the rear part of the pane 17. Other components that must be built into the door, but are not shown in the drawing, can also be placed in locations under the fixed pane 17 but either ahead

3-5 of or behind the space that must be reserved to accommodate retraction of the movable pane 12. It will be noted that the movable pane 12 is still large enough to extend from approxi¬ mately the location of the steering wheel 24 to the back 26 of the seat. As a result, it provides adequate space for the

20 driver, on the driver's side, or the passenger, on the other side, to reach out and pay tolls or to communicate with persons outside the automobile when the pane 12 on the respective side of the car is retracted.

Fig. 1 shows two slanting guides 27 and 28 that

25 guide members 29 and 30, respectively, attached to clamps

31 and 32 that hold the lower edge of the movable pane 12. The clamps 31 and 32, although shown as small individual clamps, may be constructed as a single channel that runs along the entire lower edge of the pane 12. Between the tracks 27 and 28 is a regulator structure 33 to raise and lower the pane 12. This regulator structure can include a hand-operated crank, if desired, but it is shown in Fig. 1 with a drive motor 34 connected to a gear box 35. The latter, in turn, is connected to a flex- ible actuator 36 in the form of a core wound with wire that provides a helical surface to mesh with an output drive pinion in the gear box 35. The upper end of the core of the actuator is attached to the pane 12 by means of a clamp 35, which could, alternatively, be constructed as part of a channel extending along the entire lower side of the pane 12. The flexible actuator 36 does not rotate but is driven linearly like a rack and is guided between parallel members 38 and 39 so that it can apply force parallel to the guides 27 and 28 to elevate the pane 12 to the position shown in which the uppermost rim 40 of this pane is seated in a weatherproof channel 41. Yet the actuator 36 is suf¬ ficiently flexible to bend within a guiding elbow 42 to follow along a horizontal track 43 toward the front edge 44 of the door 11. This allows the drive motor 34 to be placed conveniently in the space available in the lower part of

the door panel 16 and further allows the longitudinal axis of the motor 33 to be horizontal rather than in line with the direction of motion of the pane 12. As a result, it is unnecessary to limit the vertical movement of the pane 5 12, and therefore the vertical dimension of this pane, in order to allow enough space for the drive motor to be placed in line with the direction of movement of the pane into its retracted position.

Fig. 2 shows a cross-sectional view of the door

10 11 with the motor 34 located near the bottom of the door and beneath a longitudinal strengthening beam 45 that has a corrugated cross-section.

The part of the door 11 shown in Fig. 2 includes the track 28 which, as shown, is curved so as to be more

15 or less concentric with the outer surface of the door panel 16. The track 28 is pivotally mounted on a support member 46 bolted to the upper surface of the beam 45. A pin 47 serves as a pivot member for the track 28, and a bolt 48 that passes through an elongated slot 49 in the support AS

20 also helps to hold the track 28 in place and allows some pivotal positioning thereof to get the pane 12 precisely aligned in the door 11. Near the bottom of the track 28 is a projection 51 that serves as a lower limit to re¬ traction of the pane 12. This projection is approximately

25 the same distance below the upper edge 52 of the panel 16

as the uppermost edge of the pane 12 is above the clamp 32, to allow the pane 12 to move the full distance between complete retraction into the door panel 16 and complete extension into engagement with the fixed pane 17 (Fig. 1) . In the latter position, the upper edge of the pane 12 fits into a channel 53 attached to the lower edge of the cutout portion of the fixed pane 17. The channel 53 has an H-shaped cross-section to serve as a substantially weather-tight seal between the paries 12 and 17.