MOTORING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15521, 31 January 1914, Page 6

MOTORING.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Mr. Neville Newcomb, president of the Auckland Automobile Association, who is on a visit to Cambridge, expects to return to the city on Monday. Mr. T. Granger, of Auckland, completed a fortnight's tour of the province on Thursday. A touring Buick car made a good run from lauranga to Cambridge last week, when it conveyed a party of seven passengers and the driver over the new Kaimai track, a distance of 53 miles, in 4f hours. Some steep grades and long stretches of rough road were negotiated during the run. A run to a place several miles beyond Waipu was made last week in a 38-h.p. Daimler, the first sleeve valve car brought south of the line. Five passengers were carried, and no trouble was experienced either way. The going was very bad beyond Waipu, the car being taken over a track on which no motor-car had previously been driven. Mr. J. Patterson, who left by road for Wellington in his Argyle car a fortnight ago, reached Rotorua yesterday on his return trip. He will come on to Auckland to-day. Mr. W. J. Scott, of the engineering staff of Argyle's, Ltd., left Auckland by road on Thursday in commencement of his Dominion tour. He goes by way of Napier and Wairarapa to Wellington, then from Picton, via Marlborough, Canterbury, and Otago provinces, to Bluff. He will probably return to Wellington, cross to Nelson, and after touring the West Coast of the South Island wfll return to Auckland via the West Coast road. Mr. Scott desires to gain experience of the Dominion roads in order to advise the staff in the designing of colonial models. Mr. Scott is accompanied by Mr. S. Wbodroffe. Mr. Lock, of Auckland, is going as far as Wellington in Mr. Scott's car.

The recently concluded motor-car reiability trial from Melbourne to Sydney vas a big success, judged by the percentile of finishers out of starters, but after ill that is not everything. The chief mestion from a motoring standpoint is— .vas anything learnt from the strenuous lest? An Australian writer who formed Dne of the overland party is of the opinion that several valuable lessons were gained from the reliability trial, and if manufacturers will only take idvantage of the knowledge thus gained, :onsiderable benefits will accrue to motorng in this country. The most serious 'ault revealed was that several of the cars itted with the thermo-syphon system of :ooling failed badly, while otliers, iucludng several of the prize winning cars, had 10 trouble with the same system of water :irculation. From this it appears it is lot the system that is at fault, but its application. The trouble appeared to be that on several cars a sufficient head of water is not provided above the conduit npe to the cylinders, and as soon as thb vater evaporates down to a certain point, .he water circulation fails. This is a. deect that should certainly be brought beore the manufacturers whose ears failed n this respect. Another point was that several cars had to have the oil sumps oi heir engines refilled during lunch controls. This should not be necessary on an up-to-date car on a day's run of 168 miles, ever in the hottest of weather. Electrical .roubles were few— magneto giving ;rouble in one instance while a high tendon wire plug vibrated out of the magneto in another contestant's car, which would otherwise have gained full points for relability. The majority of points lost on the trip were debited for broken fron rings, and despite the rough nature oi tlie overland route, it is apparent thai there yet remains ample room in some can 'or improvement in this direction. Lite iverage pace throughout the test was not ugh; therefore it was surprising to see 35 points lost for 17 broken leaves o: iprings. Longer springs and more leaves appear to be the remedy. In the earl} lays of motoring over this inter-State •onto one rarely escaped without a bent front axle. On this occasion out of the 2» :ars that finished there was only on< debit ander this head, and that occur ■ed through the driver talking to hii >assenger and dropping heavily into a 'V ' gutter. In- this direction, therefore, :ar manufacturers have made good. Sooted sparking plugs and carburettei troubles cut several contestants out of full •eliability points. In only one instance was there, a leaky radiator, a great improvement on past overland tests- From a joint of comfort the scuttle dash type ol oody was seen at its worst in this run, ;he heat being something terrific, with the thermometer showing up,in the region o: LO7 in the shade. Driving in the sun with /he heat of the engine boxed up in the rent portion of the body of the car— t felt like- sitting in a turkish bath. Wore provision needs to be made for veniilation in this style of body if it is to renam in vogue in this country. As at iresent constituted, the scuttle dash is. a failure for long-distance summer travel ling. The feature of the test was undoubtedly ihe fine petrol mileages recorded, and the ivery-day motorist will find it hard tc realise that the figures published-are cor :ect, but then he must remember that ivery advantage was taken of all descents, o coast. The mileage figures of the leading cars, with weight of cars in pah-en theses, are worth citing.-—A. Jewell t2-h.p. Dixi (weight of car and passenger n lbs 3144), 37-2 miles per gallon; J &£&?' 12-h.p. Richard Braziei [36381b), 31.5 miles per gallon; G F £11, 12-h.p. Talbot (35661b), 31 miles per ,'allon; A. V. Turner, 25-h.p. Benz ;45001b), 23.9 miles per gallon. Some very interesting figures have re:ently been compiled from official sources ■>y Lord Montague, editor of The Cai England), showing what tremendous strides the automobile industry has made n less than fifteen years. It is computed .hat up to the end of December last there vere 425,838 motor vehicles in Great 3ritain, 1,435,000 in the United States, ind 366,011 in other countries, making a otal of 2,226,849 motor vehicles in the eading countries of the world. This imnense total is the measure of less than fiiteen years' progress in automobilism— here lies the marvel of the motor move nent. Moreover, ninety per cent, of these notor vehicles have been manufactured ind used during the last ten years. If is therefore hard to realise what may b< .he number of motor vehicles in the world «n years hence, what their 1 consumptior )f liquid fuel may be, what the cost of ruling them is likely to amount to, and the lumber of persons who will be interested in the designing, making, selling, and driving of them. It is no exaggeration to say that the growth of automobilism baa no parallel in the annals of the world in any other direction of which' we are able to think whether in the growth of rail ways, of steamships, or in regard to anj other great invention or evolution. L. G. Hornsted, a well-known Englisl racing motorist, last week established twc remarkable records on Brooklands track (England) when driving a Benz. He succeeded in negotiating two miles in 5£ 4-ssec, which is at the rate of 122 miles an hour. Hornsted also covered fiv< miles in 2m 355, equal to a speed of lie miles per hour. Both these performances rank as world's track records, but fastei times have been established on th< straightaway hard sand-beach at Florid; (U.S.A.), where R. Burman has driver two miles in 51.28 seconds and V Hemery five miles in 2m 34 4-ss. But o these two sets of records Hornsted's wil easily rank first, being accomplished on < circular track.

Although tyre troubles had no actual bearing on the results of the recent Mel-bourne-Sydney motor-car reliability ■ contest—no penalties being enforced for troubles of this descriptionthe engine even being allowed to be stopped while i-e----placements were being made, it is only fair to point out the conspicuous absence of tyre replacements during the inter-State trial. In years gone by tyre troubles were the bugbear of this overland trip, but even with the tremendous heat experienced in the test just concluded, it was remarkable to note the small percentage of tyre repairs carried out on the road-side Of course careful driving had a lot to do with it, but even making allowance for that, the trip demonstrated that the motor tyre of to-day shows marked improvement in reliability and durability, and is far in advance of the tyres obtainable a few years back. * ,