MOTORDOM

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 November 1929, Page 7

MOTORDOM

NEWS OF THE ROAD

(By

"Gearbox”)

LEWIS AND MOTORS. “ “CAR PERSONALITY. One of England’s best-known humourists, D. B. Wyndham Lewis, gives a highly amusing description of London’s last Motor Olympia. He said: — j “At the request of Otis P. Boomer, now in New York, from whom I received a wireless message desiring me to put him wise to the latest developments in the British automobile industry, I immediately made a tour of this year’s motor show at Olympia. This being an expert review of the show, it is possible that a few technicalities may have crept into the main body of the descriptive matter. They are, however, not important, and may be removed with a little benzine. They do not detract from the value of the thing as a whole to the serious motorist.

“Year by year the exhibits at the motoi’ show Jbecome more significant, all fraught .with meaning. The average motorist selecting a new car no longer asks himself as in former years, ‘Why?’ or ‘Of which?’; the question on the lips of every motoring enthusiast to-day, when brought face to face with a new model, is simply ‘Has this car personality?’ or ‘What is it saying?’ And year' by year the number of cars which have only engines and bodies, without personality or character, steadily diminishes. It is now scarcely possible to go round Olympia without finding a car which does not impinge at once on the sublimated ego and respond in greater or lesser' degree to the reaction set up in the complex of the beholder; and in most cases, indeed, a sympathetic, twittering of the ganglion; is immediately registered, even if the reflex be negative, and vice versa. From a large number of cars endowed with the important quality, I select for description the

FIFTY-FIFTY GRUMPH (£2,500), WITH WHEELS, £3,000. . This model has snaffle valves, geared to 96deg F., and running gimbals connected by means of alternating grummits with the main tertiary bumble spring. The forehand drive is fitted with a synthetic clutch and wheeved snocket-pipes, which reduce fringling of the soffit-brush and embolish in the whangle-drum to a minimum. A Strimble noggin stud differentiating between 56 (x— y) ana 65 (x plus y) foot-lbs per minute enables the off-side rumble-gudgeon to work freely in the vimbraces _ and eliminates guttering in the pippiestrainer. A good knock-about car for* the man of moderate means.

VEST POCKET 2 1 MIMBLE (£275). A handy little car -which folds up and stows away neatly without disturbing the, “set” of the waistcoat. Women motorists are enthusiastic about the Mimble, which when not in road use may be used as a blotting pad. The steering pillar has hollowground tumming sheaves, which enable the main snifter to be actuated direct from the foreward thruple shaft, and also enables it when not in action, to be used for knitting fancy vests, etc. The 3i model (£325), which has interlocking garage-valves, and a slightly more convex snudgebox, has a patent Vumson sorzer, by means of which the chassis can be used as a sewing machine, an eggwhisk, or a sugar-sifter. A rather more sporting type is the larger model which is becoming increasingly popular among agriculturists. The engine of this handsome model is triple-grove and a highly-atomised drubbin-pipe connected by ratchets with the central frumble-valve enables the blades ot the reduplicator to be used for slicing turnips and addressing envelopes. The 1929 model of this popular car is specially trained to follow its owner, and a patent Wumming rooging-bolt directed from the camshaft by means of these sensitised Uffer snog-weaves permit of the chassis being used as a milk separator and warming pan. On the back axle being lifted and the quaternary simmer switched back in line with the binomial yubbing docket an alternating current connecting with the Wamble triple-seamed amplificator sets up a highly peptonised nodular metabolism of the brubbing tube and enables the engine to be detached and used as a hairbrush. The hydro-car-burettor may be used for breeding hens,’ and a rucket attachment to the Peabody three-ways fingering fan makes it possible to unship the unmeter and use it»as a mashie. Professional men, especially doctors, will probably find much to interest them in that useful runabout.

SPEED RECORDER. A novel speed recorder, which, it is claimed, would provide valuable evidence in tracing the movements of cars immediately before an accident as well as having other valuable characteristics, has recently been patented in Berlin, By its use it would be possible to clear up the responsibility for many motor accidents. The new instrument works by a purely mechanical indicator motion, and is actuated from the car’s drive shaft,, the movement being effected by the; pulsating knocking of a pin against the indicator lever. In addition to moving the hand which indicates the momentary speed, the mechanism also moves a stylus behind the recording disc, so that it moves towards or away from the centre according as the speed varies. The recording disc which revolves slowly at a rate proportioned to the distance moved by the car, is transparent, and the stylus traces a diagram of the speeds at which the car has travelled. This, therefore, becomes a record of the speed at which, the car was moving immediately, ptior to any occurrence when the information may be of value. The recording disc is coated with a tough compound which will neither dry nor solidify, into which the stylus cuts the speed curve which shows up as a dark line against a light background. After a revolution of the disc, the beginning of the. curve is deleted by a conib, which spreads the compound afresh, thus providing a new surface for the beginning of the' next revolution of the disc. A graph representing a distance of about six miles travelled is thus preserved, the diagram automatically renewing itself by. the continual deletion of as much of the tail end of the line as is added at the head. The instrument is described as being so sensitive and accurate that each movement of the throttle by the foot lever is shown as a distinct break in the regularity of the curved line.

DIESEL ENGINES. ' v NOT SUITABLE FOR CARS. Since a recqpt flight by a plane powered with a Packard-built Diesel engine of new and secret design, the Packard Company has received hundreds of letters from people inquiring if Diesel engines eventually are. to be used in motor cars as well as in airplanes. The reason for these inquiries is that a report got Abroad that Diesel engine use might revolutionise automobile operation because of large economy through the use of crude oil instead of petrol as fuel. When the plane flight was made it was said that the cost of the oil consumed was only 25 per cent of the cost of petrol for the same distance. An answer was sought from Colonel Vincent, vicepresident in charge of engineering of the Packard Company, who expressed great doubt that there will be any such result as far as the motor car is concerned. “First,” he said, “fuel economy is secondary interest to the man who buys a higher priced car today. If it were possible at once to equip all cars with Diesel engines I doubt if there would be much, if any, difference in the cost of oil as fuel. It might not prove any cheaper than gasolene, due to distribution conditions. Many of us can remember when gasolene was considered merely a by-product of kerosene, with small value commercially. Then as another phase, we must remember that the Diesel engine is a high-compression motor, in which the compression is constant at something like 5001 b to the square inch. One of the diffi'cjilties in Diesel use for motor cars as 'We have them now with fast acceleration and smoothness through an entire speed range, would be to make this compression variable and flexible enough, to allow for starting and stopping interference at low speeds. With the frequent changes demanded by modern engine operating at slower speeds, requires only 301 b to 501 b to the square inch of compression, and runs up as high as 901 b at full speed. In an airplane, with the speed much higher but more constant, the compression at 5001 b an inch largely sustains itself. Then, he added, “there is engine odour, which has been a fault in Diesel power plants we have had. The Diesel in starting gives out a puff of oily smoke which in the airplane is quickly dissipated by speed and rush of air. In a car it might not be easy to get rid of. To make the Diesel practical for cars would require enormous fly-wheels on the engines. In a plane the propeller serves as a fly-wheel. The larger fly-wheel would have to be put on a Diesel motor car engine to get balanced flexibility. Lack of flexibility is of no great moment in a boat or airplane enginfe, but it is vital to the car. Another point is the comparatively slow crankshaft speed required for Diesels. In the Packard-built Diesel the revolutions per minute had been built up to range between 1,800 and 2,000, which is fast for this type of engine. The average revolutions per minute demanded for the present-day motor car engine is 3,600 to 4,000. So much for the present status of the Diesel in relation to automobiles.”

LAND SPEED FACTORS. Apparently there are only two details which limit the maximum speed which may be obta’ined on land, one factor being the tyres and the other the course on which the record may be made. When Sir Henry Segrave set up the present world’s speed record of 231.36 m.p.h he used tyres, the rubber tread and walls of which were almost as thin as the proverbial visiting card. They were expected to have the life of just one run in one direction, although when Malcolm Campbell registered his great feat of driving 5 miles at the rate of ?12 m.p.h., he actually covered over 20 miles on the same set of Dunlop tyres. The idea of using these very thin tyres is that centrifugal force has to be reckdned with when a tyre is revolving at a pro. digious speed and so great arfe the stresses, that a thick rubber tread would be flung off when the maximum revolutions were reached. Of the other limiting factor it is believed that there is not a track in the world where it would be possible to reach a speed of 300 miles per hour, bearing in mind the distances required to get up maximum speed and to bring the car to a standstill. > Hence a project to construct in England a speed track on which world’s records can be set up, has been started. Captain Malcolm Campbell, who like Segrave has remarkable speed records to his credit, is responsible for introducing the scheme for a world’s record speedway and is formulating plans to construct a concrete track along the English coast between Skogness and Boston. The cost of the work proposed would probably exceed £500,000. It involves re-claiming a considerable area at present covered by the sea at high tide and building a sea wall for the greater’ part of the length of the speedway. The track would be at least 15 miles in length and 200 ft in width, and would probably be combined with a road racing circuit, linked up with the speed track itself; somewhat similar to the of the Montlhery speedway near Paris, so that a road race like the Tourist Trophy, which recently took place at Belfast, Ireland, and attracted 600,000 spectators, could be run on it. Captain Campbell—it is stated —is quietly confident of the success of the venture. If it materialises England will be the world centre for land speed records.

HAVANA’S HIGHWAYS. Havana has long been a holiday land. People from all over the world go to visit this jewel of the Caribbean but, until recently, the trip had to be made by steam. With the completion of the picturesque Overseas Highway a new approach has been opened and to-day the motor enthusiast can have the added pleasure of driving his own car from the southern tip of Florida, 141 miles across the keys and ocean, to the. city of Key West where his car goes with him on the bfiat, and, in six hours, he and 'his car are on the dock at Havana. It is a vastly different Havana from the Havana of ten years ago. The famous Malecon or Sea Wall Drive, one of the most effective highways in the world, has been extended. Passing on, through the Vedado —once a forbidden enclosure infested by band-

its but now a splendidly built section with villas on either side of its flowering drives, the motorist finds a broad avenue that ends five miles further on at the magnificent new building of the Havana Yacht Club. Next to the Vedado, passing beyond the Almendares River, where a few years ago rough stakes merely indicated streets, chalets and chateaux look out upon azure sea. Fountains and parks, almond trees, sycamores and always the royal palm, make these suburbs, Miramar, La Sierra and Alzuias de Almendares compare favourably with the faubourgs of the great cities of the world. Further down the hill, toward Jaimenita, at one time a remote fishing village kept more remote by the mosquito infested undergrowth, the motorist comes upon the new building of the Havana-Biltmore Yacht and Country Club. From there one turns and drives toward Guanajay on the “Velvet” Highway which, when complete, will be 700 miles long and will join Havana with Santiago de Cuba at the other end of the Island. On this first link of the all-Cubap highway, in a district where poor roads once led through rank bush, there are now miles of macadamised streets winding through a landscape of tropical luxury dotted with splendid estates. By the end of 1929 this new highway will reach Matazas. Much of it is already built and within a few years it will be possible to drive virtually all over Cuba from Pinai del Rio, where you see how the finest, tobacco leaf in the world is grown under cheesecloth to keep it from darkening, to Santiago de Cuba. However novel and pleasant it is to visit Havana in your own car, it is by no means necessary for cars can be hired. Those who can tear themselves away from Havana, find such interesting stops as Indian cities built before Columbus came; age-old ports peopled by the descendants of the original conquistadors and El Cobre,, the first copper mine exploited in America. Leaving Havana is turning one’s back upon the sort of place to which one goes for two weeks but stays for two years—a tropical Paris that smiles at you with all the sophisticated gaiety of the present and yet reminds you of all the romance of the past. Havana is at once so real and so unreal that someone aptly said “This is no city; this is a moving picture set.” At all events, it offers endless enjoyment to the motorist.