MOTORS AND MOTORING.;

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13301, 6 October 1906, Page 10

MOTORS AND MOTORING. ;

Six ten-horse power Cadillac motor-cars arrived in Auckland from America by the Sierra during the week. .' ' V Mr.- Lucas, of Nelson, has arrived ;in Auckland with his motor-car. i He intends to motor overland to Wellington. -> .._.- ;The fine moonlight nights of the- past week have been the -means of inducing a ' number of motorists to indulge -. in night runs. ' Trips to Mangere and Otahuhu have been in favour, and the roads are reported to be in splendid condition. _. ' ■• The Scottish Automobile Club has issued a certificate as to the performance of the 16-20-h.p. Sunbeam car, which = ran from John O'Groat's to Land's End and back recently, a distance of : 17562 miles. The engine was never stopped from the commencement to the end of the trial, and no repair or adjustment took place. The petrol consumption was 22.8 car miles per gallon, lubricating oil five gallons, and water one gallon two pints. The observers reported that the engine ran perfectly, and .required no attention; that it was most easily'controlled, and that the change of gears was done without; any noise. The' performance certainly was a very remarkable one. . A 00-h.p. Wolsley-Siddeley omnibus,, which has recently completed ! over 10,000 miles running with the' Loudon General Omnibus Company, has proved itself to'bo one of the most reliable vehicles on the road. ( . The brake power is said to be particularly good,' and the means for adjustment of the foot brake are so simple that the driver can make an alteration in a very short time, this part being easily accessible from the outside of the vehicle. The whole 1 cost* of repairs during this 10,000 miles has been something under £5. _ . -'' f Tho Tsar of Russia, so reports, run,." has ordered a motor-car on a. very largo scale from a Buda Pesth firm. It is armoured bke a war vessel—presumably for protection against bombs—and the speed developed is something like 60 miles an hour. The car contains three rooms—a saloon, dressingroom, and cloak-room, and the cost is estimated at £5000. . l ; Considerable interest is.being evinced by American engineers in the new petrol-elec-trio car which is successfully running on the Delaware and Hudson branch railway between Schenectady and Saratoga. This car, which is of the same typo as those used by tho North-lvastorn Railway on it* Filey branch, is fitted with a 140-h.p. petrol engine made by the WolscJey Company, of Birmingham, and is capable of a speed of 45 miles an hour. The petrol engine actuates an electric generator, from which the current is taken to the motors on the road wheels. It is quick at starting, and is economical in working. It is probable that other American lines will adopt this type of car for their branches, which feed the main lines, and it is a compliment to the British motor-car trado that Uncle Sam should have come to England for the petrol engine. SOME REMARKABLE TRIPS. A record automobile trip across the continent of America has brought the automobile into special prominence. L. L. Whitman started from San Francisco at „ six o'clock on the evening, of August 2, and made tho trans-continental run over a route of about 4000 miles to New York in 15 days two hours and ten minutes. The previous record, made by Whitman last year, was 33 days. But for a scries of accidents it is said he would have made the run in 11 days. He crossed three mountain ranges, traversed 13 States, forded streams, and encountered other vicissitudes of crosscountry riding. Among other mishaps ho was ditched in quicksand, immersed in a river, sloughed in mudbanks, collided with a stonewall, and pitched into a canal. Whitman drove a 36-horse power Franklin car with touring equipment on a runabout frame. In his climb of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 7000 ft, he, approached the time of the Overland, Limited, averaging 10 miles an hour/although delayed nearly half a day by getting into the- quicksands near Humboldt Sink. In ' Idaho ,he found his .way blocked by swollen rivers, and in crossing the, Green River ho. lost six hours because his car became submerged. He reached Chicago in 11 days. From Chicago to New York he expected to surpass the record of 58 hours 43 minutes, made by Bert Holcombc, but lost 36 hours by colliding with a.stone wall between Ohio and Pennsylvania, ' and an hour or more by running from tho towpath into the Erie Canal, near Syracuse. •Previous trans-continental runs include four records made in 1903, one in 1904, and two ,in 1905. ..George, A. Wyman (of California) left San Francisco on May 16, 1903, and made the trip to New York in 50 days on a lj-horso power motor cycle weighing -90lb, and won the distinction of being the first person to cross the continent in any kind of a motor vehicle. Dr. H. Nelson Jackson left San Francisco a week. after Wyman, driven by his chauffeur, Sewell K. Crocker, and made a ; 63-day trip to New York. Ho made a northern detour through Oregon that made his journey equal to about a 10-000-mile trip. He drove a 20-horse'power Winton. Tom Fetch brought the Packard ■touring car. known as Old Pacific, through from the Cliff House (San Francisco) to New York in 61 days the same year, while L..L. I Whitman and E. L. Hammond brought an iOldsmobilo runabout through in 73 days. Whitman made his second trans-continental trip in a 10-horse power Franklin in 32 days 23 hours and 20 minutes the next year, and Mr-gargi and Huss drove two Oldsmobilo runabouts from New York to tho opening of the Lewis and Clark exposition at Portland in a 4000-mile race, Huss winning in 44 days. Megargi later drove with David F. Fassett in a 16-horse power Reo from New York to San Francisco -and, back by way of Portland, Oregon, and covered 11,780 miles.in 294 days all told, though, a great deal of time was lost, including one stretch of threo weeks, during which the car remained abandoned in the' bed of a river. '