NEW SMALL CARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 191, 14 August 1928, Page 17

NEW SMALL CARS.

THE SO-CALLED SMALL CAR WAR. INCREASED ENGINE EFFICIENCY. MERELY A CYCLE IX MOTORING EVOLUTION. The amusingly announced enterprise on the part of Morris and Clyno in marketing small cars follows the current vogue by being heralded as a motor car war, to be waged this time, not against Ford, but against Austin, says the "Autocar." Actually, the news means no more than that the gradual development of the two businesses in question has been year by year in accordance with the tradition of motor manufacturing history, throughout the world. Thereby this year those firms are marketing vehicles of greater capacity and peformance than the small light cars with which they began their motoring manufacturing careers. Singer recognised this, as did Standard, at an earlier date, and did likewise. In each of these cases a cycle in motor car evolution had been completed and opportunity offered to commence a- new one. From the beginning of the movement the tendency has been always to market more elaborate and more powerful vehicles year after year as the -reputation of the given maker has developed. That is an inevitable policy, because whoso builds soundly creates a large market for his wares among those who i quire more efficient and more comuu ous vehicles as the years go by. As regards the bulk of the established firms in the world's motor industry, this is not the first coming back to the starting point. Motoring began with small cars of approximately six to eight horsepower developed either by one or by two-cylinder engines. Before the war, however, the middle and large size car was manufactured in such proportions that Standard, Singer, Wolseley and Morris rightly recognised that there was scope for returning to light car production by introducing such machines with four-cylinder engines, of which Austin was the pioneer. That was really the beginning of the second cycle. Since the war engines have been made still more efficient, whereby, without increase in size, they have been able to cope with covered bodies, full electrical installations, front wheel brake equipment,' and a variety of other invaluable accessories now incorporated ..in standardised vehicles. Thus what was formerly regarded as a small fourcylinder engine, say, of 1500 c.c., is now by no means the smallest size to be stan- I dardised quite cheaply to develop reliably the amount of power necessary Jto propel a fully equipped four-seat covered vehicle. Hence the decision of more leading large scale car builders in this country to give a part of their attention to that vast section of the public that is waiting to be recruited to the ranks of motor owners if only it can be provided with such cars of £9 a year or less taxation rating, and of correspondingly economical running costs. This is the commencement of the third cycle in the evolution of the car.