SHE SAYS...

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 14

SHE SAYS...

When you give it some thought, there are many things which we regard as almost essential on cars today which were regarded very much as luxuries only a few years ago—it’s like the washing-machines and refrigerators we’ve come to think of as necessities in our homes.

We become very used to having these “extras” at hand, too, and there can’t be many new cars sold today without heaters and windscreen - washers, for example. Not long ago I drove a car with an automatic gearbox and power-assisted steering for a few miles. It was very easy to become used to, and very

easy to drive, and when I later got back into the family’s ordinary-gearbox, ordinary-steering car, it felt like driving a truck, especially when I had to wriggle it into a small parking place in town! I got used to it again quite quickly, but when the time finally comes for "Old Faithful” to be replaced (the car, that is!), I’m going to put in a word for automatic transmission and power-assisted steering. In any car, you do a lot of changing gears and wrestling with the steeringwheel in the course of even one shopping-trip, and women are usually more conscious of all the effort needed in this regard, especially in a big car, than are men.

It’s really not too hard to see why in a country like the United States, where the cars are very big, and women do a lot of the driving, automatictransmission cars with power steering and power brakes are the rule rather than the exception. I used to sneer at power windows in cars, too, but when you’ve driven a big car in which you don’t have to stop and lean across the seat to open or close the far window, you begin to see the point of it. I think my dream car would have all these “labour-saving devices," and reclining seats, and one of those gadgets that lets the wipers give just one wipe every 10 seconds in light rain, and airconditioning, and built-in seat-belts, and some of those tyres you can still drive on when they puncture, and a stereo set, and a radio-telephone so that I could make calls from the car, and ... I think I’d better take a ticket in a big, big lottery!