THE MOTOR WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22659, 26 August 1935, Page 2

THE MOTOR WORLD

By ACCELERATOR.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT. The Compass, a publication of ScconyVacuum Oil Company, which contains many illustrated articles descriptive of the latest developments in motor ships. The Vauxhall Motorist for July, embellished with an artistic Coloured cover depicting “the brotherhood of the road” and containing some useful, and humorous articles inside. SAFEGUARDING THE PEDESTRIAN. Although there are many pedestrians obstinate enough to insist upon their archaic first right to the road they should not forget that they are merely unite of road traffic once they choose to leave the footpath, says the latest safetyfirst message of the Automobile Association (Canterbury). Because of their numbers and their vulnerability the pedestrians are a very important unit, and their conduct on the roads is vital in ensuring the maximum of safety on the open highway or in the city streets. Some simple, easily-applied rules should be set*to heart and assiduously practised by all walkers wjio wish to preserve their well-being. The shortest route across the street is the safest. Never walk obliquely across; walk across at right angles, and, unless there are defined footways elsewhere, cross thoroughfares only at an, intersection. Before attempting to cross a street or road make sure that the way is clear, and then do not hesitate in walking ! smartly to the other side of the road. I The motorist expects you to do the obviI ous thing. Do it if you know it. ! Do not confuse other traffic by indecii sion. Remember that a motor vehicle | cannot jump sideways. ‘ Do not alight from a tram and then | walk round the rear end of it, and do not wait on the roadway for a tram. The road is no one's as of right. It is for the safe and sane usage of everyi one. Do not contest any rights you may think you may have on the roadway. Always watch and obey a traffic inspector’s signals. He is there, to help you as well a a drivers or riders of vehicles. When it is raining make allowances for the limited visibility open to the motorist and the risk of skidding wheels. Show greater care at night time when the play of light and shadow on the road may mask your presence to the motorist. If you must walk along roads in, the country it is wise to walk on the righthand side of the road facing oncoming traffic. You will be more easily seen by the traffic. ' Do not take any risks with any kind of road traffic. Always be alert, alive to road danger, and remember that 17 pedestrians were killed in New Zealand last year through their own confusion or carelessness. SAFETY GLASS. Since the beginning of the year 13 of the American States hgve adopted laws requiring the installation of safety glass in mothr vehicles. This brings the number of States having such legislation to 21, with California making 22, if the Governor has signed a measure passed recently and needing only his signature to become effective. Practically all the laws, it is reported, are more or less uniform in requiring safety glass in all motor vehicles, private as well as commercial, manufactured and sold after a specified date. In a number of States, school buses and other common carrier vehicles must be so equipped after a specified date, whether they are new or not. None tof the laws requires the installation of safety glass in private cars already in use, although it is provided m several States'that, when it becomes necessary to replace glass in old cars, it must be done with safety glass. CHANGING DESIGN. The streamline idea has produced many changes in motor-car styles and shapes some desirable and others distinctly not practical. On the whole, its influence unop windscreen design has been good, tending toward an improvement of vision in addition to a materia! reduction in wind resistance. , . Wide changes have occurred in windscreen shapes. In addition to slanting at an ever-increasing angle, the windscreen has become much wider than was former y the case, to suit the new styles of ,coachwork. This extra width is a definite advantage to the driver, because the pillar and the blind area winch it creates are shifted farther to the right, so improving the driver’s view of the road. CAR PRICES. In order to clear up some confusion that exists in the foreign trade as to what f,o.b. prices, as quoted by American manufacturers, mean, the Export Managers Committee of the Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, at a recent Detroit meeting, decided to explain that the factory list prices are for comparative purposes onlv, and do not include the prices of many items of equipment which are (■standard for tip; United States trade, nor of other than standard accessories which are ordjnarily required by American and overseas buyers. List prices for trucks, it was emphasised, are for chassis without cabs ami bodies. . rT ~ , The American motorist in the United States will pay, on the average from 14 to 25 per cent, more than the f.o.b. factory price for the. delivered car. The list price is for the bare car without bumpers and extra tyre, absolute essentials to motoring. and without several other accessories which are virtual necessities under modern conditions.

WHAT SHALL WE SEE IN 1945? It is related that at a celebration dinner after the finish of the famous Emancipation Day motor trial from London to Brighton, held on November 14, 1896, one speaker said that within a few years cars would doubtless be able to make the journey at 40 miles an hour; whereupon an eminent engineer observed in unfortunately audible tones that ‘ it was a great pity that at every gathering where speeches were made somebody must inevitably make a fool of himself.” His comment was perhaps true, but subsequent events showed which was the wise man. Prophets are proverbially suspect (says “Spotlight” in Sydney Mail). If their predictions are acceptable they are charged with commenting on the obvious; if they make unorthodox they are exposed to ridicule. It is with a good perception of those contingencies that one ventures to marshal some of the evidence from which a vision of the popular car of 1945 might arise. The rate of progress in all branches of science and engineering associated with the motor industry has, of late years, become so accelerated that it is most difficult to keep pace with it. Almost daily some new device or process is poured forth from the crucible of knowledge. The novelty of to-day is obsolete to-morrow. But there is a vast difference between so-called freak productions and the radical alterations. The experimenter backed with liberal funds, can indulge his every fancy, but the directors of car-manufacturing firms must reconcile possibilities with hard business facts. They have to sell their products in markets where competition is very keen, their shareholders expect them to pay dividends, and they cannot lightly scrap plant and equipment which has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is common knowledge that when Henry Ford decided to change the design of the standard model produced in his huge factories it was necessary to make a prodigious outlay of money. Similarly, when modified streamlining and new processes for bodyraaking were evolved, manufacturer after manufacturer was compelled to finance very costly alterations. The man % in the street sometimes asks: “If that novelty has proved its worth, why don’t all the car-producers at once adopt it? ” As well say that if a good structure has been built with bricks, but some inventor shows that another material is more attractive and durable, the wdiole building should immediately be razed and rebuilt. For very obvious financial reasons the development of the perfect stock-model gar must ba grqduak It cannot b® ®x-

Items of news—short descriptions of tours, the state of the roads, «to., comment, or inquiries—will bo welcomed by Accelerator.

,pected that improved methods or designs, no matter how intrinsically superior they might be, will cause an overnight revolution throughout one of the most immense industries in which fabulous sums are invested. That is a fact which sometimes escapes the notice of those who promote or invest money in new patents. Now let us peep a decade ahead. The first object to draw our attention roust be the highway system. Most people are saying to-day' that the new cars are “ too fast for the road," and that ordinarily the driver cannot safely take advantage of the very high cruising speeds of which they are capable. Few critics would dispute that assertion, although it can justly be argued that the ability to reach such .fast rates connotes great flexibility at lower speeds. But if the merits of streamlining and enhanced power output are not to be stultified and present progress checked, the world must gradually remodel its highways. Take any powerful model you choose—not a racing car, but one of the many th.V in favourable circumstances can keep up 70 m.p.h. or more, and try here or abroad to find an itinerary on which its great pace can be consistently enjoyed. In America there are long stretches of arterial highway® where extraordinarily fast average speeds can be maintained; Italy has her special toll-roads reserved for motor traffic; and Germany has undertaken a most ambitious programme for the building of such car highways. In Great Britain much has been done by making by-pasees so that motor transport is routed round towns and congested areas; but St might. be suggested that until circumstances make higher speeds possible manufacturers will not aim at the production of faster standard models. Much might happen in the next 10 years, and the indications are that in all the principal motoring countries of the world highway authorities are building for the future. Here again expense must set a limit on the quickness of development, but it would not be fantastic to picture a network of arterial roads on which level intersections are avoided by subways or overhead ramps, all corners are made safe for high-spedd travel by wide and steep bankings, and where illumination, is necessary there is adequate diffused lighting which literally turns the night into day. All these improvements have been accomplished experimentally; time and money should make them general.

In venturing to sketch the motor vehicle of to-morrow it would be prudent to take the mean of several schools of thought. One group of experts insists that engines should be placed at the rear of the chassis, so that more body space is procured and noise and fumes are banished. Others claim that, as has already been done by a great number of manufacturers, the moving forward of the engine and the placing of both seats within the wheelbase is the best design, ensuring equal distribution of weight and the maximum of riding comfort. Then there are the compression-ignition enthusiasts. They say, in effect: “Why continue to employ petrol engines when the Diesel unit, which burns a cheap oil fuel that is not dangerously inflammable, i» at your service? ”

We must watch the Diesel closely. From a very inflexible unit which once ivas suitable, only, for marine and stationary engines, it has been improved amazingly. Possibly it is not yet, even in its most nearly perfect form, as flexible as the petrol engine; but it is very significant that some of the leading aviation interests in the world have given it their imprimatur. Its fuel economy in miles per gallon is surprising (with commercial vehicles it is frequently almost double that of a comparable engine driven by petrol); but its continued cheapness of operation might be influenced by the tax gatherers. Here and abroad an impost on petrol fuel has been hailed ns a happy source of general revenue or for the financing of road building. Last year the Commonwealth Government collected some £6,000,000 from the petrol tax, and it is most improbable that if Diesel engines come into more general use they will be allowed to “ get away with it.” The tax on,oil fuel has just been raised in Great Britain. Still, those considerations do not rule the compression-ignition engine out of court —far from it, for even if the fuel it burns was taxed as highly as petrol is it could still hold the field, provided always that it is developed in such a way that it will not be more expensive to manufacture than the petrol unit and will be competitively flexible.

Modified streamlining is now- general;; a few models are vitually fully streamlined, and if new highways in the years to come permit higher speeds, then we might expect to see an exaggeration of those contours which indisputably are increasingly valuable at rates above, say, 50 m.p.h. Some authorities have predicted the decline - and fall of the chassis frame. New methods of stamping body panels and of welding have opened the way to the building of cars in which the chassis and the foundation of the bodywork are merged into one. The coming of independent wheel suspension encourages the prediction that the days of the chassis, as we now know it, are numbered.

Such are a few of the possibilities which can, so to speak, be taken, at will from the spare parts department of the imagination and fashioned into the family car of 1945 —a streamlined body; no chassis frame or tubular central member; very wide seats which will each accommodate three adults easily; a compres-sion-ignition ■ engine of medium size; a maximum speed of 100 m.p.h.; and springing which is so well balanced and “silky” that, as is the boast of some railway companies, water will not spill from a full tumbler when one is travelling at fast speed. Such a vehicle is within the bounds of expected progress. Braking is still a problem to be overcome. At the moment the ultimate has apparently been reached. The_ tractive adhesion of the tyres set the limit, but perhaps the futui’e models will have wind brakes operating on the same principle as those which Sir Malcolm Campbell fitted to his renowned Blue Bird car.

To suggest that amphibious vehicles might within the next generation oust the car is to dare the mirth of many who do not trouble to read what has been accomplished in other lands (concludes “Spotlight”). Not long ago a German experimenter crossed the Channel in an amphibian. What shall be said of the combined autogiro aeroplane and motorcar? Several of the great Powers have planned it, and, according to a dependable report, such a startling outfit is being built in the United States to the order of the Bureau of Air Commerce of that country. This wingless flying craft is to weigh some 13001 b and will be powered with a 90 h.p. seven-cylinder British engine. In the air it will have a speed of 100 miles per hour, and on the ground 25 ip.P-h. The long blades of the rotor, or “windmill,” which, of course, take the place of wings in that form of aeroplane, will be so made that they can be folded back quicklv and the power from the engine will be transmitted to a single rear wheel, while two wheels at front will be so arranged that they can be steered in the customary way. In the words of a famous politician, we "must wait and see.” LORD NUFFIELD’S LATEST. No less an authority than the Autocar predicts that Lord Nulfield’s new “Senes II ” will prove an even greater success than the Morris Family Saloon, of which 38,000' were sold in eight mouths—easily a record for the British motor industry. The Autocar describes it as “ altogether a remarkable car ” which achieves oa the jroad a high degree of refinement. The appearance of the saloon, with its raked windscreen and downswept tail and generally streamlined contours, marks a new development in the 'English car of popular price. The high power to weight ratio of the Morris Series ii provides a sparkling performance and a high cruising speed which may be maintained for long periods and over considerable journeys. The frame is of special box-section and the body is rigidly attached to the chassis, the two forming a double box-sectioned structure of immense strength. Ventilation has received special attention, the door-windows being of the ventilating type which extracts the vitiated air with*

out draught, whilst additional ventilation is provided by the. top hinged windscreen with easy adjustment and scuttle ventilator. >eat meta] door stops of the concealed type, which take up no body room whatever, are another example of the attention lavished upon detail fitments. Specifications of the Morris Series II include new turbulent-type cylinder head giving greater power output; large capacity ventilated dynamo with three charge rates: equipoise floating rubber engine mounting eliminating vibration; framemounted pedals free from vibration; central hand brake with instantaneous adjustment from driver’s seat; and aircleaner and engine fume-consumer eliminating carburetter roar. The Lockheed hydraulic brakes and hydraulic shook absorbers which proved so successful on the 1934 models, have been retained with a few minor improvements. Besides the saloon there is a new close-coupled coupe, of the type favoured by the fam.ous British coachbuilders. THE MOTOR CYCLE A .A. (OTAGO) CYCLE SECTION FIXTURES, September 7.—Treasure hunt. September 17.—Monthly meeting. September 21.—Slow hill climb. October s.—Paper chase. October 15.—Monthly meeting. October 26-27-28.—Labour Day trial. November 9.—Camberly scramble. November 19.—Monthly meeting. November 23.—Run to Brighton. December B.—Social run, Buckland’s Ford. CLUB NOTES. At the last meeting of the section Mr A. B. Bingham presided over an attendance of some _25 members and friends. With great regret the resignation of Mr J. D. Carson from the office of honorary secretary was accepted, and on the motion of the chairman a vote of thanks for his services was carried with acclamation. I Mr J. A. Bevin was nominated for the I office, and in accepting tendered his resignation as press steward, to which position Mr, W. Pettet was elected. Captains for the two teams in the competition were nominated, Mr J. Murray being captain of Wigans and Mr J. Cunningham of the Wirrels. * Reports on the sporting trial and mystery run were given by Messrs J. Bevan and J. Carson respectively. . The draw for the billiards cue tournament is now out, and members are asked to play their game at an early date. Games may be played in the presence of either the chairman, chairman of Social Committee, or the secretary. A GIANT, is reported from, Los Angeles that Mr F. Luther has constructed a giant motor cycle with which it is hoped that a rate of 300 m.p.h. might be reached. This Gargantuan machine weighs 15001 b, and is driven by an engine taken from a powerful and popular make of sixcylinder car, having a capacity of 3300 c.c., and an output of 77 horse-power. It is said to be more than three times larger than any unit hitherto installed in n motor cycle. The present speed record stands to the credit of E. Henne, of Germany, who, with a 750 c.c. outfit, a pace of 152,86 m.p.h. According to international competition rules the capacity of motor cycle engines for record-breaking purposes is limited to 1000 c.c., so that, even should this monster machine prove successful, it would not appear that it is eligible to win an official record. SPARKS “ You can’t leave your car here, miss.” " But this is a cul-de-sac.” “ I don’t care if it’s a Rolls-Royce. You’ll have to move it.” # * * A baby car, which will _ sell for £3O, is said to be in production in America. It is a single-seater with a 7ft 4in wheelbase. A rival to the wheelbarrow, perhaps. «. ♦ ♦ An efficacious method of cleaning the hands after working on the car is to "wash” them with clean engine oil and then with kerosene. This means is particularly successful in removing grease. * * • v ; "An’ where’s yer license?" demanded the constable. ~ ’ ’ “It’s under the back seat in my car,’ answered the motorist. , ' “ Sure an’ that’s all right, then—Oi don’t want to see it: but. begorra, if yez didn’t have Oi would. , : *• # * Motor cars can now be pawned in London. The amount advanced is usually 70 per cent, of the car’s trade value, and the interest charged is 4d in the £ per month. ♦' * * Mr A. R. Galbraith, city engineer in Christchurch, who has just returned from a holiday, stated that he was much impressed by the fine roads and motoring conditions in Noumea. The roads are very up to date, and are sealed for miles out of the city of Noumea. The island is 250 miles long, mountainous, and very picturesque. Petrol costs about 6d a gallon. Most of the ears are of French make and very modern. '< , $ * * The first known motor race is said to have been held in 1894, in France, from Paris to Rouen. Altogether 102 cars attempted to exceed the minimum qualifying speed of ,7J miles an hour. The present world’s speed record, established by Sir Malcolm Campbell,, is 276.816 miles per hour. These two tacts measure the distance which automotive engineering has travelled in the relatively short space of 41 years toward faster and safer cars. * * Summoned for driving without a license at Bournemouth (England), a motorist was reported to have said: "You cannot summons me for that, because I was fined a fortnight ago.” “He thought he had a season ticket, I suppose,” said the chairman of the Bench. * • # !jt One of the facts revealed in a report of the National Physical Laboratory at Home is that experts having tested red, light and dark orange, and blue-green lights, have decided that the revealing power of a coloured headlight in fog is the same as that of a white beam of the same intensity.