MOTOR NOTES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 256, 13 October 1923, Page 15

MOTOR NOTES.

BRITISH MOTOR CARS. EFFORT AT MASS PRODUCTION. PREFERENCE WANTED. British motor car manufacturers have a cut and dried scheme to obtain increased preference in Australia for British motor cars. The motor trade anticipates that the British Government will acquiesce m die demand for preference for Australian dried fruits and, therefore, the motor car traders are determined to do ,irst with their uemanu that Australia Milan give a quid pro quo±v ib pointed Oul that it has always been a sore point that the last Australian tariff revision has actually reduced the British preference from 10 to 5 per cent. ‘‘Anything under 10 per cent, is practically valueless to us,’ declared Mr. Gladstone, secretary of the Association of British Motor Car Manufacturers, “We have impressed the Colonial Office, with this point, and are urging that the difference between British and American freights coupled with the fact that the British makers give greater attention to quality is a serious disadvantage to us. “Many manufacturers would rather have, an increased preference than a reduction of the duty, but the most admirable arrajhgement would be to admit British cars free, and the others with 10 per cent, duty/’ The special representative of “The Sun” learns that in the event of a satisfactory adjustment of the tariff a gi‘oup of manufacturers who are already collaborating, will proceed to the consideration of a scheme for the pooling of their brains and resources for the "mass production of an allBritish chhssis of about 20 horsepower possessing the Ford’s high power and low weight ratio. It will be constructed specially to suit Dominion conditions, and will have tho new low-pressure pneumatic tyres, a French invention, which will allow of high speeds on the roughest roads.

The group is also combining for a united advertising and selling campaign.

FORD’S ELDER BROTHER. MOTOR MAGNATE’S ROMANCE. The live wire of the Ford business has just taken up his quarters in LouUon. He is Senator James Couzens, who, with Henry Ford, shares the responsibility, or the guilt, of providing motor’cars by the million. I Born at Chatham, Ontario, fifty-one l years ago, Mr. Couzens went as a youth | in very poor circumstances to Detroit- [ Here he obtained employment as a carchecker in tho yards of the Michigan [Central Railroad, where, as he says i himself, he “picked up more grime than money.” I Next he got a little more cash—but J not much—as a worker in the coalyards on one A. Y. Malcolmson, who 1 paid him the prindely salary of sixty [dollars (£l2) a month. The future senator managed to save some of it. Cupid Calls. I Then Cupid called to him, and Jim 'Couzens decided to get married. With this end in view lie approached his [employer with a request for an increase of fifteen dollars (£3) a month, and got it. Five years later chance passed by, and the future millionaire grabbed her with both hands. An increasing interest was being evinced in Detroit, in the doings of an I enthusiast named Henry Ford, who, [ with the aid of a single gasoline engine, had started a motor-car business. | Ford persuaded A. Y. Malcolmson to guarantee the bills of tho company up to 7,000 dollars, giving in return 25,500 dollars worth of stock in the Ford Motor Company. Malcolmson sent Jim Couzens to keep an eye on his interests in the motor factory, and the envoy very quickly realised that it was promising concern and invested his savings in it. In 1915 he had vastly increased his holding m Ford shares ,and had become general manager of the company and a partner of Henry Ford. In the Senate. Finally in 1918 he grew tired of the motor-car business, and permitted Mr. Ford to buy him out for 30,000,000 dollars. (£6,000,000).

In December last ho was elected to the American Senate. This is a brief resume of the life.story of the big and kindly man who smiled blandly through his spectacles (nut horn-rimmed) while he talked to a nemspaper representative aftv. arriving at Southampton in the United States liner Leviathan. ‘‘ I have come to Europe partly for pleasure and partly for work/’ said t*o senator. ‘‘ I am one of the committee of five appointed by Vice-President (now President) Coolidge to devise a national policy to submit to Congress to assist the various States in ‘reafforestation’ or the maintenance of the lumber supply. ’ ’ ' ® @ ® METHOD OF MOTOR TAXATION. Lord Montagu, of Beaulieu, contends that the soundest method of motor taxation is the old form of tax on motor spirit which automatically taxes power, speed, weight and use. The present tax imposed in Great Britain is only a tax on ownership, irrespective of use, which is obviously absurd. He contends that heavy commercial vehicles under the present unfair system of taxation are not paying their proportionate share for the use of the roads. The ordinary motor car does little, if any, damage to the modern main roads consolidated with tar or a bituminous carpet. @ MEANING OF “HORSE-POWER.” Many people wonder at the term “horse-power.” They see a single horse pulling a trap along the road at fourteen miles an hour, and wonder why a motor car should need from ton to fifty horse-power in order to travel satisfactorily. It is to be explained that a horsepower does not mean the full power a horse can exert when putting out all its strength. It is an attempt to represent the forcec an average horse can apply continuously to his work for a long -time It was useful to have a measure of this kind, so mathematicians agreed that one horse-power should mean the ability to do an amount of work equal to raising 5501 b. one foot in one second.