NO PETROL?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 310, 31 December 1940, Page 10

NO PETROL?

MOTOR MOTES.

GET ROUND IT. RESOLTS OF RESTRICTIONS. It is an interesting thought that to-daj; the last day of the year, many hund&ls of New Zealand motorists, must l»c hundreds of miles away from home on holiday, absolutely stuck «o far ae getting borne in their cars is concerned. Many of them will have exhausted their supply of petrol in gaining ihfir goal, and now they can only sit axl wait until the pasting of lime curei their trouble. Btft to-morrow it will be a different, storj Tlvy will then be able to use fire new petrol coujkws—the supply for ■liinutry and February—and their worrie* for the time being will be al aa end. Many and varied have been the method's to which motorists have resorted in oaler to spin out their petrol c4i}ip]y. Sinn have become "coaslers." . At the first ghmji-e of a down hill strcl<-h they simply *hut off their engine and leave the rest to gravity. Some carry the system a little further and **3cap frog." Which simply means accelerating- un to about 3.» ni.p.h.— gradmlly —and then shifti!? into neutral until the speed of the air drops to 20 m.p.h. This, thev earnojtly assert. lea<U to a saving of about <.ne-sixth of the total petrol eonsum[iioiu Th» owner of one small car claims that he has found a cheaper method stil!. On a recent trip to Hamilton he had tie benefit of a t-trong tail-wind and, beinyra yachtsman as well as a motorist, he decided to make use of what the gods Jiad given him. Piece* of twine knotted together served to hold the two large doors of the email car at right anglei to the body, and with the aid of the wind he made appreciable progress «n the flat stretches and on down grade. As he has since pointed out, thi« mcth«d «, superior to yachting itself, in that there arc no t:des to contend with. Next.time he is going to take a spiniiakcc, f Other motorists have mixed various •quids with their petrol, ranging from keracne to white mineral oiL Sometimes they get there; often they do not. But its all great fun. * TO nefc Out hears les* in these days about touriig holidays in ramshackle cars picked up off the dust-heap. Time was whenJearly in the Xew Y«, r e verr other nxrtonet w« saying; Picked up* an old hulk ,for a fiver; toured all over the country in Iwr, and sold her for a tenner when I got back"—that last point was important. It -was always anoint of bonotr to make a profit on the deal. Bui several people have thought of buyjft an old car, for even an old car is is«ed with petrol coupons. Few of time would-be buyers, however, have «rnei out their plan. For if the pur! of the car is added to rerispetrol thus gained is apt to make the average motorist stop and think again! The one advantage of petrol restricpossiUe benefit to motoring in the invention of new aids to transport. Xeeessity being the mother of invention, it is oclr to be expected that effort* will be made ceaseksftly to circumvent the restrictions bo long as they are in force. A challenge to mans ingenuity will never i* unanerered—particularly if the man b* a motorist. A laxi-driver the other dav told me be wai working on the idea of « electric air. The vehicle was to run off a battery, which, in turn, would be charged by a generator operated by the ere motion. Perpetual motion, no J .