MOTORDOM

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 4

MOTORDOM

NEWS OF THE ROAD

( By

“Gearbox” )

GOOD TRAVELLERS.

HOW YOU CAN TELL THEM. It is usually possible to tell at a glance the woman who is an expenenced traveller from she who has never ventured far afield. The & oo tiavellciLis not fussy, and she does not ask innumerable questions', Sue looks up routes and time-tables beforehand, and consequently she does not need to ask every other Person for information. Also, she is not bu dened with lots of luggage. Another point in her favour is that she is suitably dressed —wearing a winter coat if the weather is cold. The ideal travel-kit consists of a neutral-colour-ed light-dress, or suit if the weather is cold. A light coat and skirt is good, too. for summer travel, veij comfortable shoes should be worn, with stockings that are not too thin, loose, washable gloves, and a hat that permits one to sit back in comtoi . It is not good policy to wear much jewellery. A large handbag that will held notecase, purse, tickets, money and other necessities for the journey, and will stay firmly shut when closed, is absolutely essential. It helps also to have as well a small case holding valuables and money that one does not want to entrust to suitcase or trunk, and that can be carried easily when one goes to the diningcar for meals. Neatness on a journey is obtained by taking with one a roll-up waterproof case with sponge, face-glove, soap, toothbrush, paste, cream, powder. It occupies little space. It is a good plan to pack in one’s luggage another roll-up “hussit holding cottons, threads, matching skeins of mending silk for stockings, scissors and odds and ends that may be wanted on holidays.

BLOCK ROAD CONQUERED. Anyone who has ever driven or ridden over a cobblestone street in an automobile, for even a block or two, will have a feeling of sympathy for the test-drivers who, ever since the Belgian block test roads were installed at the General Motors proving grounds, at Milford, Michigan, have been pounding over them in the conducting of durability tests. For the famous Belgian block road is about five times as severe as the roughest road the average motorist will ever encounter. Up to this year, this sympathy would not have been wasted, for those men who drove the stiff front axle cars over the cobbles,, found the strain so great that after an hour and a-half of driving they had to be replaced by relief drivers. But this year it is different, for the test-drivers who handled the new “knee-action” Oldsmobiles on the Belgian block roads drove their regular eight-hour shift without any sign of fatigue. In the first year that Oldsmobiles were tested on the Belgian block road, the cars would on the average stand about 1,000 miles of this gruelling punishment before it was necessary to “pull them” tor adjustments. However, the new “knee-action” 1931 Oldsmobiles, soon to be announced, have shown so little sign of wear after 7,500 miles steady driving under the same punishing conditions that Oldsmobile engineers decided there was no practical advantage to be gained by prolonging this arduous test. WATCHING NEVER CEASES.

Nine years ago the first Chevrolet ever operated on the great General Motors Proving Ground at Milford, Michigan, was grinding out its first 1,000 miles. Since then these cars have covered upwards of 10,000,000 of test miles on this .scientific outdoor laboratory in the interest of improved car performance. Since the opening of the proving ground in late September, 1924, not a single day has passed but what at least one or more Chevrolets were out on the hilly retrain grinding out mileage for the guidance of Chevrolet engineers in the development of to-morrow’s new features and processes. To-day, fleets of a. dozen or more cars may be witnessed at any time of the day or night whizzing around the concrete speed bowl, climbing the 24-degree inclines, taking the bath tub test, or undergoing the bumpy tortures of the Belgian block road. Since the establishment of the proving ground, test cars have averaged better than one million miles a year there. This mileage is piled up under all types of climatic and road conditions, with heavy-footed professional drivers working in relays. M hen the proving ground is to be used for the testing of any new mechanical device or process, the essential parts are built by production methods m Hie experimental laboratory, UI ? , * the direction of J. M. Crawford, chief engineer. These parts are then installed in a test car —a half dozen test cars if the development is important—and the . cars, are then sent to the proving ground, with the drivers minutely instructed as to the speed they shall drive, the type of roads they shall drive on, etc. "We then drive the cars,” says Mi Crawford, “until any inherent defect or strain is apparent. We run the cars at least 2,000 miles to determine customer reaction before putting them on regular durability breakdown schedules. It is here on the proving ground, under the most severe driving conditions, that the •bugs’ that used to harass the new car purchaser are ferreted out and killed before the car gets on the market. It is here, too, that the phrase two years ahead’ got its inception. For we are constantly working that far ahead on new mechanical developments. At the present time we have innovations under test that will not appear before 1936, and perhaps not even then. But we need to work fai in advance so that we are ready with the new things when the public taste is ripe. To burn up 10,000,000 unproductive miles solely for testing and proving our product may sound like •in extravagance, until it is remembered that since we first started using the proving ground we have built and sold more than 7,000,000 new cars and trucks. In, that light, the test miles piled up prove a decidedly attractive investment because they have enabled us to build a finely balanced product correctly engineered and rightly ■ priced.”

POTENTIAL DANGER.

driving at speed. The question road speeds has been undergoing some \ tion in the “New York Times.” Following an article which appeared in its motoring columns, a lettei forwarded supporting a statementAo. the effect that even on a good open road speed in itself * danger (one hears constantly that on a feood open road it is not). The let te, ‘I was travelling on the Albany Post Road from Hudson to Poughkeepsie about 7 o’clock in the evening. We were going along at about fifty miles an hour. About nine miles north, of Poughkeepsie the rear right tyro blew out. The car was driven by a. chauffeur, and there were foui other occupants. Either my chauffeur was exceedingly competent, or we were exceedingly fortunate. At that speed the car might readily have gone into the ditch. We swung to the left and then weaved, but he handled the car so that he made three-quarters of a circle turning around, sliding, of course, quite some distance. Appaiently no damage was done, but we might have all been killed if there had been traffic on the road ; The question that arises in my mind is: Is such, a, speed, or the higher speeds you indicate, presumably safe? 1 am inclined to think that I will not allow my car to go above forty miles an hour hereafter.” . In reply the writer of the original article indicates that there had been a misunderstanding of what lie had written, and a wrong inference made. The article did not “advocate” high speeds, but merely accepted the fact that some motorists did drive, and would continue to drive at high speeds, and he had proceeded to wonder what could be done about it. He had admitted the practical impossibility of restraining roadsters and suggested that the only way to meet the situation was to build highways that would reduce the dangers of fast driving to a minimum. It offered as at least a partial solution the limitedway roads (i.e., roads so divided as to be really one-way roads) proposed by Dr. Miller McClintock, director of the Erskine Bureau of Street Traffic Research of Harvard University. The situation seemed to be somewhat analogous to that arising from a typhoid fever epidemic. Every one disapproved of typhoid fever, but disapproval in itself did not stop an epidemic. In spite of all that medical science could do, the epidemic would claim some victims. But, by intelligent procedure, causes could be eliminated and cures effected. That seemed to be the only procedure against the present epidemic of highspeed driving by present-day motorists. NEWS OF THE WORLD. MOTORS v. CAMELS AGAIN. The automobile is ousting the camel on the routes to Mecca and other age-old desert tracts and the growth of motor traffic in the middle East is probably one of the most conspicuous features of post-war development in that part of the world. It is expected that before long the automobile will be the prime means of transport • throughout the territory which embraces Egypt, Palestine and Syria. The total number of cars in the middle-Eastern region has risen from 52,000 in 1929 to 75,000 in 1933, according to latest reports, and the proportion of cars to population is one for every 700 inhabitants, as compared with one car for every 956 in Poland and one for every 2,000 in British India. The goods transported by motor between Syria and Iraq rose from 2,000 tons in 1930 to 6,318 tons in 1932, and annual imports of cars and accessories into the middle East are valued at present at nearly a million pounds. GERMAN SPEED CAR TRIED OUT. Reports from Berlin are that Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, a leading German engineer, has developed an “undercover” high-speed car which looks half like a fish and half like a torpedo, The facts concerning it indicate that it is powered with a 16cylinder engine which is mounted in the chassis behind the driver, so that its weight is virtually centrally disposed and that the chassis itself has an unusually short wheelbase. According to reports the car was taken from the construction works at Chemnitz to the Nunburg Ring between Coblenz and Cologne where the Grand Prix races are run and was given preliminary trials. The roar of its exhaust is described as shattering and various high speeds are attributed to it. Behind the construction there appears to he an intention to go out after the world speed record.