IRST N.Z.-MADE CAR

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31711, 21 June 1968, Page 9

IRST N.Z.-MADE CAR

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\VHILE there is no appar- ’ ’ ent evidence to contradict the claim for Mr W. McLean as importer and driver of the first car in this country, and as the first person to pay duty (£75) on a motor car; or the claim for Mr Edward Seager (who put the car together) as the first car assembler, there is conflict of opinion about the construction of New Zealand's first car.

That conflict is between the rival claims of Cecil W. Wood, of Timaru, garage proprietor and president in the 1920 s of the then Garage Proprietors’ Association, and F. R. Dennison, motor engineer, Oamaru, but formerly, of Hilderthorpe. Mr Wood claimed to have “made” the first motor-cycle and the first motor-car engine in New Zealand. The motorcycle was made in 1897, he told me, but it was not used till May 20, 1900. The car did not run on the streets of Timaru until June 4, 1901. - In 1938 Mr Dennison had quite a lot to say about his claim to have “built” the first car. He knew Mr Wood well, and asserted that when he passed through Timaru in June, 1900, from Christchurch, on his way to Oamaru, Mr Wood was on the look-out for him.

He was taken by Mr Wood to see the car which he was building and which was far from completition. DISPUTE

Mr Dennison disputed the claim for McLean’s- importation of the first car in spite of ample documentary proof of it. He gave the honour to Nicholas Oates, of Christchurch, though in fact his importation of a Benz in 1900 was two years after that of McLean. Oates, whom I knew well, never made any such claim. Indeed, Mr W. H. Montgomery, of Little River, asserted that a McLean car was taken to the South Island before the Oates Benz arrived.

Montgomery went to Paris with McLean and with his knowledge of French, helped to prepare the document giving McLean his New Zealand franchise for Benz. Oates said his Benz, which cost £250, was made by the Raglan Company after the German pattern. It landed in New Zealand in October, 1899.

However, there were at least three motor vehicles made in the South Island round 1900, the year the first six-cylinder car, the recordsmashing Napier, was built in Britain. But far and away out in front where passengercarrying road vehicles .are concerned was the road steamer designed by Professor Robert Julian Scott, of Christchurch, and built by the E. C. Cutten engineering firm in Dunedin in 1880. There is no doubt of that first. FIRST STEAMER

Preceding Scott’s first New Zealand-built road steamer was the use in Dunedin on Saturday, November 19, 1870, of the first road steamer to be imported to this country. It was a Thomson vehicle bought in Edinburgh by Mr J. L. Gillies for £B5O inclusive of some spare parts and freight. The Stanley and many other makes of steam-driven vehicles came eventually to New Zealand until the great development of the petrol-using vehicle in the first decade of this century. It is interesting to note, that in 1906 a Stanley steam car set a world record speed of 127 2/3 m.p.h. Though N. J. Cugnot, of France, invented the first steam tractor in 1769 it was 132 years before R. Trevithic, of Britain, invented a steam vehicle solely for roads. Cugnot’s vehicle used for drawing artillery was the first vehicle of any kind for road haulage.

Mr Dennison affirmed that he “built” the whole of his car in Christchurch from raw materials, except rims, tyres and chains. The tyres and rims were supplied free by the Dunlop Tyre Company and Dunlop Tyres were advertised on his vehicle.

The engine was a fourcycle, horizontal, open crank type, 4jin bore and 6in stroke, water-cooled, with kerosene fuel and hot tube ignition and hot vaporiser. It had one direct gear from engine shaft to rear axle transmitted by two heavy quod chains side by side, and a cone clutch. It had no mudguards, windscreen or hood. On a good road it would travel at 30 m.p.h. and use less than a gallon of kerosene over 30 miles. OAMARU TRIP He left Christchurch one winter’s morning in early June, 1900, for Oamaru. He had his troubles. He became stuck in the Selwyn River, the engine broke away, and the two driving chains snapped. As the car was only of six cwt he was able to pull it back on to dry land and fit two new chains. He cleared a track over the riverbed. High in its chassis the engine was clear of the water. Within two miles of Ashburton the rear axle broke. He took the shaft out, walked with it to Ashburton where he assisted a cycle dealer to make repairs. On a bicycle he returned to his car, and three days after setting out he reached Oamaru.

It was on the outskirts of Timaru, while he was buying kerosene, that Mr Woods found him. On his intended return to Christchurch his car caught fire when travelling down the terrace to the Waitaki River. He was able to salvage only the engine, recondition it, and install in another vehicle. So the Dennison car, and the Scott road steamer, priceless acquisitions for any museum, cheated collecting connoisseurs by well-authentica-ted acts of mechanical suicide. Both were going merrily downhill at the time. In Scott’s instance the road steamer, bound for the Christchurch exhibition, went out of control descending the hill to Waitati and rocked and clanged itself to pieces at the bottom.

Legend has it that the boiler was sent to South Australia for use in a sausagemaking plant. Professor Scott found the prohibitive cost of his road steamer sufficient discouragement to further experimentation. By the way, McLean’s first two cars named “Lightning” and “Petrolette” would be priceless finds also, don’t you think? To be Concluded