SELLING CARS

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31047, 30 April 1966, Page 4

SELLING CARS

From Horse to Horsepower. By S. A. Cheney. Rigby. Adelaide. 296 pp. After a lifetime of experience in the motor industry, S. A. Cheney has written a book which opens a new line of motoring literature —selling motor-cars. Mr Cheney began his career in Adelaide in 1903 selling the “curved dash” 5 horse power Oldsmobile. His salary was £2 per week, but some sixty years, and several famous car manufacturers later, Mr Cheney was a very wealthy man with one of the largest and most successful car-distribiifing organisations in the Western world. His look at motor-cars is more critical than most—naturally so, because if they were not successful he could not sell them. There are quite a few surprises regarding the reliability and workmanship of cars bearing some famous names. Mr Cheney’s first cars were sold from an illustrated catalogue with the slogan: “They’re easier to stable”; when grooms advised their employers to. keep to horses Mr Cheney overcame the problem by teaching grooms how to drive and how much more simple it was to care for a car. The second car with which Mr Cheney was associated was the sturdy Scottish Argyle, a strongly-built car which stood up to the heavy demands of the early Australian roads. These early cars arrived in cases ready to be driven away, but they consisted of only the absolute essentials. Windscreen, hood, a spare wheel and acetylene gas lamps wer-e added in Australia but the tyres, with a pressure of about 701 b per square inch resulted in punctures being an almost daily occurrence.

There was no lack of appliances to attend to. “The Argyle had a highly-polished brass oil tank on the dashboard. From this an array of copper pipes with glass sight feeds ran to various bearings. The drip feeds had to be carefully watched to see that they were all dripping at the prescribed rate, and the glass sights kept clear.” After the Argyles came the Model T Ford. On first appearances Cheney considered the car to be far too light for Australian conditions and refused to sell it to his customers, but of course it proved to be built of extremely durable materials and it was not long before he became a Ford addict. His first sale of one illustrates the point that a salesman should know his products. He was told that he would make a sale if the Ford would climb a nearby steep hill. “Climb it. It will climb it backwards.” Most motorists today know that those early Fords would climb almost anything backwards because of the axle ratio, but it was not known then. Mr Cheney sold two cars on the spot. Not many readers would know that the early Fords were made for Henry Ford by the Dodge Brothers. “Ford took delivery of the parts from the Dodge workshops, assembled them and fitted the bodies at his own factory, and through a very efficient distributing organisation sent out the finished product to all parts of the world.” When the Dodge concern decided to manufacture their own car, Cheney made a successful bid to gain the Australian franchise and set up in business for himself. A strong selling point with the Dodge was the electric self-starter; the Dodge being one of the first cars to be thus equipped. The 1914-18 war produced considerable problems regarding delivery from the United States but Mr Cheney managed to keep up the flow of chassis. Because of war shortages Holdens came into being. Mr Cheney required bodies for his Dodges and as a result of 90 minutes, thought between 5 and 6.30 a.m. during August 1917, Holden Motor Body Builders came into existence. The merger of Holdens with General Motors was fourteen years ahead but the first move was made by Mr Cheney. The Chevrolet, Morris and Austin business came to Mr Cheney’s hands in turn, and his opinions and comments regarding these well-known makes provide some very interesting reading. Mr Cheney views cars with a businessman’s eye and there is nothing nostalgic in his outlook. “It was quite a thrilling experience to ride in those early motor-cars, sitting up on the high seat, without shelter of hood or windscreen, looking down on the road in front as the car sped along at 15 miles per hour, or even faster on a good stretch of road. The speed seemed terrific. As the novelty of the thing wore off, however, so did the thrill. Riding in those vehicles was nothing like the pleasant experience of riding in the comfortable enclosed cars of today.”

This is essentially a book about big business in motorcar selling. Mergers, takeover bids and the floating of companies abound, but there is much in it for the ordinary man because Mr Cheney describes the evolution of the car in a most readable manner. He has the salesman’s eye for improvements in suspension and transmission and has the practical experience to make interesting comparisons and contrasts. There are thirty-two illustrations. This is a new view on motoring. Mr Cheneys’ book deserves a wide audience.