BRITISH MOTOR CARS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20075, 16 April 1927, Page 15

BRITISH MOTOR CARS.

MR COATES’S CRITICISM. REPLY BY AUTOCAR. AN ATTACK RESENTED. (Fbom Oub Own Coebespondent.) LONDON, March 9. The Autocar calls (o account the Now Zealand Prime Minister regarding the brief summary received here of some remarks made oy mm on his return homo—remarks which have had very considerable publicity. Autocar says: “Mr Coates is\represonteu as having made ‘an outspoken comment on the failure of the British motor cai manufacturer to supply a product suitable to the Dominion requirements. Subsequently ho is quoted as having said that British motor car manufacturers have been told over and over again what was wanted, and the Dominion would have given them heavy preference if they huu been able to take advantage of that. It is no use people here paying through the nose. Ii the British motoi manufacturer wants business it is here for him, out he must give us equipment suitable for this country and that can be used.” Mr Coates added, however. that after the delegation which is to visit New Zealand has JOiiq 'eled its tour there is no reason to doubt that the British motor manufacturer will meet the requirements. , . x , , . ’‘This remark was, no doubt, intended to palliate, or smooth down the roughness of the general criticism, Mr Coates probably thinking that, if he added such a forecast his comment would not be effectively used to the serious detriment of British industry. It is here that public men make a groat mistake. They do not realise what may be the consequence of the activities of the writer of headlines m the daily press, or how a few remarks out of many may be selected for constant repetition and given a prominence which is really misleading apart from the context. “To* illustrate the point, let us take a few of toe headings given to this Rem,of news from New Zealand ,n various British newspapers published on February i . •Britain not Best.— Why motor manufacturers fail in the dominions ; Failure of the British Motor. Car Manufacturer , Up to Us—New Zealand will not pay through the nose’; ‘Where trade is British motor cars are not bought in New Zealand’; ‘British motors—Mr Coates s plea for suitable models’; ‘British motor oars —not suitable for Now Zealand. “Now. whatever Mr Coates may have intended to convey by his speech, these headlines certainly give the impression of wholesale condemnation. As regards the comments supposed to have been quoted verbatim from Mr Coates’s » foremost the suggestion that the British motor industry is asking people to pay through the nose for its products. expression ‘paying through the nose is not complimentary. . It implies not so much that a good once is being asked lor “ good article as that an ; exceauye price is being asked for an article of some sort In this sense it is thoroughly misleading is applied to the British motor mdustrj as a whole in present conditions. As regard* the suitability of British vehicles for New Zealand or any other country Mr Coates’s remarks are based on obsolete information a s^ V p rl tlsh have been the case in the past, British cars are now able to hold their own in the matter of performance in overseas conditions. and Mr Coates’s remarks are almost inexplicable in view of his recent visit to this country and the opportunities that were then afforded him to nrove for himself, and subsequently to inform his fellow-countrymen, that large numbers of BrS motor car models are now in every respect suited for use in New Zealand and the other Dominions overseas, ihe fact is that whatever shortcomings British cars may have had some few years ago, thf present product is proving, and has proved itself eminently suitable for use in the roughest overseas conditions, and |“ “n its, merits now asserting its supremacy.’’