MOTORS AND MOTORING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13355, 8 December 1906, Page 10

MOTORS AND MOTORING.

Entries for the Auckland to Wellington reliability contest close with the secretary (Mr. Dexter) on Monday evening.

All those who intend taking part in the tour, but not in the actual contest, are also requested to notify the secretary, so that he can make arrangements for petrol and accommodation along the route.

The monthly meeting of the Auckland Automobile Association will be held on Tuesday evening.

Mr. J. Bid-well, of Featherston, will leave that town, on Wednesday in his 15-horse power Darracq for Auckland, in order to take part in the Auckland to Wellington reliability contest. He will come to Auckland via Napier, Taupe, and Cambridge, in order to inspect the roads. An English paper, Motoring Illustrated, predicts that the day is not far off when a thoroughly reliable 12-h.p. , two-cylindc car wih bo sold new at £100. High-powered cars for touring purposes are not so ' popular in Great Britain as formerly, and it. is but a natural sequence that there is a steadying effect in this direction. The horse-power. of cars for pleasure purposes has increased gradually year by year, until 80 or 90-h.p. were not uncommon. There can lie no advantage either in added pleasure or greater pace when a 40-h.p. will give equally good results. Speed, great speed, is really prohibited hence what is the use of having so powerful a vehicle when there are so few occasions upon which it can be driven to its utmost limit? It is thought that 60h.p. will be the maximum for touring cars next season. Christian D. Hegarty and Richard U. Little, who have been attempting to break the auto record from New York to San Francisco in a. Buick car. arrived iu San Francisco on September 11 at a-quarter to seven p.m. They left New York on August 16 at three a.m., and travelled for 24 days 8 hours and 15 minutes. The trip was worked in relays, and they broke the record from the East to the West, as all the other trips have been made from the. West to the East. R. J. Mueller, of Cleveland, on a motorcycle, has broken the record for the 3568mile run from San Francisco to New York by more than seventeen days, and the best previous one-man automobile record by a day and a-half. Mueller's exact time for his long run was 31 days 12 hours and 13 minutes. The previous record for the transcontinental trip on an auto-cycle was held by W. C. Chadeayne. who, about a year ago, went from New York to San Francisco in 48 days 11 hours and 35 minutes. L. L. Whitman liolds the one-man automobile record, having made the trip from coast to coast in 32 days and 21 hours. The intrepid rider said that he was in the best of health. With the exception of frequent punctures of the tire he had had no breakdowns.

BRITISH BLUE RIBAND. Tho international tourist trophy race, the blue riband of the motoring world, was won in the Isle of Man by the Hon. C. S. Rolls in his 20-h.p. Rolls-Royce car, at the record average speed of nearly 40 miles an hour. His time for the 160 miles of the course was 4h. 6m. 0 2-ss. The Hon. C .S. Rolls' pace was remarkably even throughout the race. He made the first round of 40 miles in 111. Om.Tos., and the other three rounds within a minute, or two over the hour Tho race last year was won at the rate of 34 miles an hour, and Mr. Rolls' nArforniP.ncc establishes a record for touring Sum B. Rablot, in a. 22-h.n. Berl.e. car, was' second, his time being 4h. 32iu. 58 15* and Mr. A. Lee Guinness, in a inh'n Darraco.. third, in 4h. 42m. 48 l-ss. There were very few mishaps and no accidents The condition of the road was so bad that the sand-bags carried as ballast lumped about on the floors of the cars like peas. Twenty-nine cars started