NO CHEAP MOTOR-CARS YET

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 122, 17 February 1919, Page 6

NO CHEAP MOTOR-CARS YET

One of the many post-war mysteries is the price at which'motors of all sorts and sizes will be sold, a mystery unknown to the very manufacturers themselves (writes.Gerald Biss in the "Daily Mail"). All they can do is to invite the public to put their names down on what are in many cases already very long waiting-lists ami to "wuit and see in conjunction with themselves. Some articles upon the JCIOO car written during the period of. suspended gnotoring have led a considerable proportion of the publip to anticipate a sort of "Rolls-Ford presenting itself at their doorsteps and asking to be bought at that price for a Christmas present. Ths .£IOO car will come,, but it will take some years of quantity production with our enlarged factories working at full -swing under re-balanced peace conditions, and with raw material ueither rationed nor being sold under conditions of the keenest competition for limited supplies. , ' : Meanwhile the present price of the proverbial Ford (minus any suggestion oi the Bolis!)—if aiid' when obtainable—shows that even in this pioneer cuse war conditions have put the cost up very considerably, and that it, too, for the timo being, shows no eagerness or ability to sell itself nt JJlOt). &> what chance for others?

• There are four prime and direct factors affecting the price of cars, not only in this country, but in. others as well, though not so much so in America for reasons more or less obvious, first, the price of raw material; second, rationed quantities limiting production and fettering organisation, thereby raising the all-round cost of running a factory; third, the cost of factory reorganisation and the attendant difficulties; and, fourth, the great increase in wages all round—not only in motor factories. Practically no cars have been manufactured in this country for civilian consumption for over four years.'. In consequent second-hand prices for immediate purchasers have been soaring for somo time—not without a suspicion of profiteering m certain oases—and the automobile industry in all 'its branches does not want to bu tarred with the same brush.

lii 1914 prices with stability, improved production, and established organisation were dropping. Since then there have been no price lists. When the industryis next in n position to issue such' official lists cars will be, found to be up 4(1, 50, or possibly even more per cent, to start with, and it will look a big jump. Hut Ido not fancy that they "will be found to have risen in the same proportion 'as most other things wo have been buying without interruption. That will be' the first touchstone of_ their cheapness. Meanwhile' the British industry Ims to find its feet again,

Through one of the forks of his bicycle' breaking, a plasterer named Alfred Wright, who resides at 1G Hall •Street, had the misfortune to be thrown to the ground in Courtenay l'lace yesterday morning with the result that his jaw was fractured. He was removed to tho Hospital for tveatment.