SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 February 1929, Page 12

SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

LAC-ia. OF VAEIETY.

MAKING STANDARD CARS. It has taken the motor industry many years to discover how to .build chassis each one of which shall give tho same performance as all other examples of the same model. Standardisation has proved a boon to the motor owncT in this respect, and it has also enabled ears to be : built much more cheaply for given material, workmanship, accommodation and achievement than is possible when ma chines are designed more or less to individual requirement. The story of -the first quarter of a century's endeavour of the motor indus try reveals that in Europe it. was devoted to improving the reliability and performance of the vehicle; whereas the American industry's main effort was directed less to -giving an; ambitious exhibition than to standardising results. Inevitably, there- have been ex ceptions; we owe the introduction of the successful mechanical engine-starter to the United States industry.

In America the public is accustomed to having everything standardised for it. On the Continent, and in England, in general the expression of individuality has ever been held desirable. At the beginning of the industry in the Old World, and until after the war, -the output of each car type standatrdised was relatively so small, mainly because •evolution detail by -detail was so rapid, that even a successful model was not seen on tho roads in sufficient numbers to suggest want -of variety. For about nine years some -manufacturer? in England have each built tens of thousands of cars of a given type, and many private motorists have been -heard to declare that they would not be seen owning such and such -a car, merely because so many other folk have- -cars exactly like it. That feeling is also growing in America.