The Motor World

NZ Truth, Issue 695, 12 October 1918, Page 8

The Motor World

CBy "Crank.")

Should a motorist swerve to avoid a rushing or stray dog? Most car owners and motor cyclists can call to mind numerous occasions when they have had narrow escapes of overturning and doing othen damage through endeavoring to avoid wandering or rushing canines. Human lives being of more value than those of dogs, it seems a wise provision to let .the dog look after himself. » «> • The equipment of an American army division has been fixed at four closed cars, 3 seven-passenger cars, 29 fivepassenger cars, 10 light sinffle-seaters, 112 motor cycles, 10 light motor trucks, and 343 three- ton lorries. Whan the American army m France gets up to full strength the automobiles incorporated m same will run Into some amazing figures. • * • It is often said, at the present time, that the world m general is about to enter upon a real motor age. The war, although apparently a. serious check to such an, epoch, m some ways has brought it considerably nearer by widening the commercial possibilities; to a grigaiitic extent by .training thousands of new drivers, mechanics, and factory hands; and by presenting to millions of other men a very practical object lesson of what motor vehicles of all kinds can do m moving, feeding, supplying ammunition to and Unking up vast armies m the field. The •full significance of all this, as concerns civilisation m general, will only appear some years after the war has ended, but then there will be the stupendous fact of all the chief nations of the world building and buying motor -vehicles m their millions, and, above all, looking for fuel on which to run them. It is true that there are probably very large areas, the oil-bearing possibilities of which remain unknown; but, also, there are even larger areas through which the use of the motor will eventually spread. Of late there has been the reassuring statement from America of "plenty of petrol," and, no doubt, owing to the enterprise of oil companies m new areas, the increased output obtained by means of cracking, and such economics as enclosing the head of the oil wells to collect the gas, the fuel supply is at present sufficient to meet the enormous military requirements . of the Allies, and could, m fact, allow a larger quantity to be allotted for more general use if ships were available to carry it. But what of the supplies after the war? There remains the broad fact that the motor age will include a vast amount of traffic and transport propelled by internal-combustion engines, on the roads, on the land, on and m the sea, and m the air; and one has only to compare . these with the extremely limited scope covered by previous methods of transit — the horse and the steam 'engine — to recognise that the growth of the motor engine and its fuel is one of the biggest and most revolutionary movements the world has ever seen. The eventual solution must be the use of low-grade. oil. At present only from 10 to 15 per cent, of petrol is obtained from crude oil. -The future demand can only bo met by using a large proportion of the crude oil — a problem that the carburetter designer has not yet properly mastered.