MOTOR INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 16

MOTOR INDUSTRY

BRITAIN'S RECOVERY

CLAIMING RIGHTFUL PLACE

POST-AVAR ADVANCE

Twenty-one years ago Britain was on the eve of triumph in the automotive world,, writes Mr. A. W. Hawley, New Zealand representative of the Society o£ Motor Manufacturers and Traders of Great Britain. Leader in thu lield of all engineering practice from time immemorial, she had focused her skill and vast resources on the greater and greater perfection of the motor-car At last the fruits of her accumulated wisdom and early expex-imentation were within grasp. British engineers had safely piloted the motor-car through its early capricious years as a plaything for. the rich, to the threshold of its modern career as an integral part in the daily life of nations.

Then war

Britons scrambled out of overalls into uniforms. Men, money, machines concentrated on making not motor-cars, but munitions. Commerce, industry were crippled. Britain was bound and helpless—while non-combatant nations exploited her discoveries and inventions to found rich domestic and overseas markets.

How Britain came back—despite the highest debt and taxation in the 'world despite giving Free Trade arid getting only tariffs in return, despite the loss of her former commeixial agents and connections, now linked to foreign interests, despite the belief that Britain was done and the Empire falling to pieces—is one of the great industrial romances of the century. For come back she did, slowly at first, but with an ever-growing determination, until today her motor industry, while not the'largest, is undeniably the soundest in the world.

Year by year her exports gained steadily on her competitors until March of this year saw one English factory alone with 12,000 overdue orders awaiting fulfilment— arid this in spite of a larger, more modern plant installed to cope with increasing demand. Here, too, in New Zealand, we recently had the remarkable experience of whole shipments of British cars being sold before they arrived.

The writing is on the wall. That engineering genius which' made possible the Schneider Cup seaplanes, and the Bluebirds, that inherent honesty of purpose, that insistence on quality and beauty down to the smallest detail, these things which form such an intrinsic part of every British car, are now coming into their rightful world wide • recognition.

Perhaps the greatest factor in this brilliant recoveryMs Britain's amazing adaptability to individual market requirements. It enabled her to eventually make splendid capital of what were, at the outset, very serious handicaps. For instance, the high horsepower tax in Britain forced manufacturers to concentrate on building into lower-powered cars the comfort and performance previously only accomplished by higher-powered cars. So came the modern British medium light car—without question unparalleled in any other part of the world. And so, too, developed the great feature common- to all English cars—economy in petrol consumption.- The big semiefficient engine that devours petrol may serve in the. country of origin where petrol is cheap. But in markets like this, where running costs are high— tires, oil, petrol, and insurance are very real items with us—the average New Zealander needs some convincing that he needs a big and extravagant engine iirhen ■he has proof that the smaller ■Britisher is better-equipped to do the work, and at half the cost.

And so we must admit that the demand for British cars here has nothing to do with patriotism, but rests on a genuine, unbiased preference—their perfect suitability for New Zealand conditions . . . greater clearance to negotiate rough country roads and streams, correct gearing for faster hillclimbing and acceleration, and economy in running costs.

Probably too, however, beauty is a compelling factor in the increasing demand fop British .cars.. British-automo-tive engineers were the creators of streamline design—a fact seldom recog,nised. But they developed it with characteristic good taste where many others have become merely bizarre— doubtful taste being excused on the ground of increased efficiency. But the truth of. the matter is that the streamlining has only a trifling effect until about 60 m.p.h. is reached. This inherent good taste and engineering sanity has also spared British car purchasers that inevitable "dating" which so many ■foreign car owners experience by the introducton of experimental features and gadgets, inevitably labelled the "Greatest, Biggest; Most Wonderful Discoveries'-in Motor "History," etc., etc. In 1934 we saw the majority of foreign cars boosted on' account of new features which, according to advertisement, had had "millions of actual gruelling tests." But significantly enough, in the 1935 models most of these features were abandoned. The simple fact is that most of these features were invented and tried in England, but not introduced because they were not yet sound engineering practice. Like the rear-mourited engine, they will be given to the world. by Britain only when they are commercially perfect. She will not be stampeded into using them merely to be spectacular. Meantime Britain gives the utmost advancement that is not experiment, utter reliability and above all, Personalised Beauty inside as well as out.

Reduced to £ .s.d.. these things mean a lot not only in running cost, but as most motorists should know, in re-sale value. British cars year after year have a greater re-sale value than any others. This is convincing demonstration yearly of their intrinsic worth. The British manufacturer aims at making a car not an expenditure, but an investment. And how far he has succeeded was admirably proven at the recent Wariganui- Rally. The test was over 500 miles of road varying from good, bad. indifferent, and "shocking." Not merely did British cars win handsomely all their classes; but the Open Championship irrespective of weight, horse-power, price—the Blue Ribandwas won deservedly by a little British 9 h.p. can

Britain is never so dangerous as when she is "beaten—down and out!" Watch Britain's motor industry to see this happen again, for even those who oniy a few years ago held it in contempt are either thrilled or troubled by its determined oncoming.