GERMANY'S PROGRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1927, Page 18

GERMANY'S PROGRESS

PEEP INTO THE FUTURE

The recent German automobile exhibition" at Berlin showed exceptional and all-round improvement of the German automobile) due in no small measure to the fact that the German manufacturers are adapting themselves rapidly to American standards.

Serious efforts have been made to lower the prices and several mediumpriced cars are sold for the same prices as are demanded in Germany for American cars of similrr type. The price demanded for American ears, however, includes an extremely high importation tax which, if removed, would lower the price to such an extent that no equivalent would be found among the German cars for the same amount. The Customs barrier is being lowered oy decrees and will be removed completely ia 1929. Then will it be possible to judge if the German cars can. really be sold at American prices. At present the German automobile industry is not in a position, to produce a car of the American quality at an approximate price. . . ' .' Three new designs were shown at the exhibition which command a certain in-, terest. • Two were attempts to let the engine drive the front instead of the rear wheels. One of these cars was constructed by Dr. Erich Rumpler who in 1925 designed the "drop" car with the engine in the rear—a construction which he has since given up as a failure. The front as well aa the rear axle in his car are halved, thus permitting elasticity to each wheel independently; the two front wheels are steered separately. The third exhibit of interest was a hollow front axle, in which the connecting rods for steering the front wheels and the cables operating the front-wheel brakes were placed. In this manner they are protected from dust and are continually surrounded by grease. The absence of xoadsterß I was conspicuous; only one car of this kind was exhibited by Mercedes-Benz. The motor-bicycles exhibited were considerably rimpler in design than the machines shown in previous years. Interesting was one of 10 horse power exhibited by the D.K.W. Works. The two cylinders of its two-cycle engine are arranged side by side—not one behind the other as is customary. While the German industry under the protection of the tariff wall is pre- I paring with the utmost energy for the time when it must face American competition on equal grounds, the Me foreign companies, in anticipation of this competition, are expanding their organisations in Germany. The Citroen Company of Prance is planning to produce cars in Germany.