CHEAP TRAVEL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 2 June 1928, Page 15

CHEAP TRAVEL.

i MOTOR CARS HELP. ADVANCE: SINCE 1913. The price of a car to-day is certainly down to the pre-war level, and the cars themselves are a vast improvement on the cars of 1913, and offer tremendously greater value for money, note com.ort, and longer trouble-iree life. Moreover, the cost of accessories shows a corresponding reduction, and likewise a corresponding, or even greater, improvement in quality. Tyres are below pre-war prices, notwithstanding the fac t that it is possible to run a tyre for about 10,(X.K) miles against about n.,03 miles fourteen years ago. Experience has proved that the life of the walls of a tyre is much longer than that of the tread, and now it is possible to have old covers re-treaded at a quite moderate cost, and thus add some thousands of miles to the live or the tyre It goes without saying that one person in a large motor-car may spend mere on a journey by motoring than try taking the, journey by railway, hut. it is quite different with a family tfuelling in an inexpensive car to the ceasicle for a week-end, or for the annual holiday. There is not only a sa ing on the railway fare, hut to this ■ aving must, he added the taxi-cab| fares, because the car takes them froin| their door to their destination. At the prices of petrol now prevnil-| ing. with a car doing 23 miles to the all n— some small ears .average round ID miles —the fuel cost of running is only a fraction over Id a mile, which nr is out a , ery e onomicnl figure or .wo or more passengers. One of the most satisfactory features >f modern automobile travel is that it -er es e ery- ne’ from the richest t.c> the ) orest. and is, therefore, a democratic institution in the truest sense of the ord. ft has been stated rather often diet th'> petroleum industry, and its •‘pendent industry of automobile manuacture, are the greatest civilising teent* of the present age—a statement which seems entirely justified.