A WONDERFUL MOTOR RIDE.

Evening Star, Issue 11672, 3 February 1902, Page 7

A WONDERFUL MOTOR RIDE.

Mr Winton, the president of the Winton Motor Car Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., recently attempted to cross from San Francisco to New York by motor car. The distance from, the Pacific to the Atlantic coast is approximately 4,500 rail-is, so that it will be realised that the ambitious uutomobilist sec himself a formidable task. An ordinary car was selected for the trip. Unfortunately innumerable difficulties arose soon after the car set off on its momentous journey, and they became accentuated as tho rider progressed. The most trying sections of the road were the Sierra Nevada mountains, an immense range towering far above the clouds, and the Nevada desert, the terror af all travellers. As there were no bridges spanning the streams over which the car could pass, there was no alternative but to plunge through them. In some instances in crossing these torrents the water to the footboard of the car, and the riders were consequently wetfooted. It was while crossing a rivulet in this manner that the vehicle met its only accident. It collided with a huge rock in the bed of the stream with such force that it was sent flying into the air, and landed so heavily upon another boulder on the bank that the front axle wan broken. Severe cold was experienced amid the snowcapped peaks of the Sierras. In some places where the ground was soft with water the car was buried up to the axles of the wheels in mud, and had to be extricated by sheer physical force. The riders were more than once pitched into ditches by the overturning of the vehicle, and with considerable difficulty regained their feet. When about halfway across the famous Nevada desert. Mr Winton found it so difficult to make progress, owing to the wheels sinking deeply into the scft sand, that he reluctantly relinquished lis expedition. He is, however, determined to make another attempt with a specially-de-sitrned motor car. to compete with the varying conditions of the country that are encountered.