British Car Makers Study Dominion Markets

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 27 (Supplement)

British Car Makers Study Dominion Markets

New Vehicles Undergo Extraordinary Tests Of Stamina

N r EW ZEALAND’S motor industry is todayone of her biggest industries. Motor registrations total 211,164. In number of cars per head of population New Zealand is second only to the United States. As is only proper, New Zealand’s principal customer for her primary produce, the United Kingdom, is also one of her main suppliers of motor-vehicles, at the rate of 14,000 a year. Today British manufacturers are devoting increased attention to studying the New Zealand market, and to manufacturing vehicles perfectly suited to colonial requirements.. Visitors to the recent London Motor Exhibition must have been impressed by the importance which leading manufacturers in the British motor industry obviously attached to overseas market. More than ever before, they were developing their models with an eye to overseas sales, and were approximating ever more closely to ideal export specifications. Safe and Reliable

England is today producing excellent cars that will stand up to any conditions and perform to traditional efficiency. They are still being built up to a standard, not down to a price. Much attention is given to improvements which tend to prolong their life and increase their reliability, safety and economy. They are safer to drive, are cheaper to maintain, and uniformly more comfortable. They are safer to drive because manufacturers have spared no pains in such matters as improved visibility, the increased use of safety glass, more efficient brakes and tyres, improved systems of springing and, above all, perhaps, greater ease of control. Lower fuel consumption is also a general characteristic of 1939 models, due to various mechanical improvements and refinements.

In outward appearance there are no fundamental changes in the 1939 models, the characteristic individuality of British cars being maintained as in the past.

Extravagant, florid lines, and excessive so-called streamlining, indulged in by other manufacturing countries has been avoided. British manufacturers believe that British-car buyers at home and abroad prefer a car that bears the stamp of its country of origin, rather than an automobile that might be mistaken for the product of another country, or one that looks “just like all the rest.’’

Several manufacturers have again reduced their prices, notwithstanding the many improvements and additional refinements incorporated, and the more generous equipment included in their standard specifications. Stringent Tests As a striking example of British motor-car body insulation, a saloon car made by a well-known firm has recently passed a permeation test in gas clouds. The car, a stock model, was not designed with this object in view, but the fact that the makers consider that it is capable of travelling through gas-infected areas with safety to the occupants speaks volumes for the effectiveness of the dust and draught-proof sealing of the doors, pedal slots, and floor boards —a very important feature for use on New Zealand roads.

A further gruelling test of efficiency was undertaken by another British manufacturer recently, who sent four stock models of a new type across the English Channel, with instructions to the drivers to drive them hard on the worst roads available, including Belgian Pave, a notorious indicator of any weakness in springing, and the boulder-strewn tracks of the Balkans, a particularly gruelling ordeal, for the purposes of ensuring that no potential weakness had been missed during tests at the factory. Another car was placed in a refrigerator for 24 hours, after which the engine started at the first press of the starter button, despite the fact that everything about it was literally frozen stiff, and the vehicle abso-

lutely covered in ice. a remarkable test of engine efficiency and reliability. Testing and research, though not always discernible to the average car-buyer, is continually going on, to ensure the purchaser of British cars the utmost benefit from modern engineering skill, science ami invention, so that it is not to be wondered at that modern British cars are commanding an increasing share of world markets. During 1937 78,100 cars were exported from Britain to practically all parts of thp world. The value of Britain’s exports of all motor products in that year totalled nearly £21,000,000. National Asset

That the British motor industry is becoming increasingly an asset to the nation was once again proved during the recent crisis, and is still being proved today. As in ,the perilous years of 1914-18, so again today the facilities and resources of Britain’s motor industry are placed at the disposal of the nation. Shadow factories of immense proportions have sprung up throughout the country for the purpose of assisting the nation to rearm, as its contribution toward world peace. 'Without the resources thus made available, Britain’s problem of rearmament would have been infinitely more difficult of solution than has proved to be the case.

This great industry employs directly 1,300.000 work-people, excluding the hundreds of thousands of people employed in subsidiary industries that are dependent upon the motor trade for their livelihood. It is the third largest industry in the United Kingdom, and in 1937 produced 389,633 cars. It is faced with fierce competition from foreign manufacturers. Apart altogether from the honest value embodied in the vehicles it produces, the part that the industry is taking in the protection of the British Empire warrants the patronage of New Zealand motorists. Without a large volume of export trade, this industry could not continue to exist, and without its great influence upon the economic life of the nation, the position of our Empire would not be as -ecure as it is today.