Cycling & Motor Notes

Otago Witness, Issue 3443, 9 March 1920, Page 51

Cycling & Motor Notes

BY DEMON.

An important .combination of English and American motor manufacturing interests is reported from England. The old established English motor concerns, Crossley Motors, Limited, has now joined forces with the big American .Willys-Overlahd Corporation, the intention being to adopt mass production of cars in England on the most advanced American lines. The capital of the new concern totals £2,000;000, and it is anticipated that before the end of 1920 the company will be turning out cars at tho rate of 7000 a year for the . British and Dominions’ markets. “Those offences of stealing motor cars and motor cycles are becoming too common,” commented Mr Justice Herdnmn in a case at the Christchurch Supreme Court. ‘.‘l am not sure that I am doing my duty in admitting you to probation,’ he remarked to the prisoner. “It is only because of the fact that you arc a young man. If this sort of thing goes on in a community the punishment meted out to offenders will be severe.” A new motor tyre and accessories price list has just been issued by the Dunlop Rubber Company. A copy will bo mailed by the company to any motorist on request. — ; —lt is annuonced from New York that the motor car race track known as the Sheepshead Speedway, established by the late Harry S. Hai-kness, millionaire sportsman, and a group of associate racing enthusiasts, will be dismantled to save the expense of upkeep and taxes. The sole reason for the dismantling, it is said, is that the racecourse was a drain on the estate. The big amphitheatre ' was opened on September 20, 1915, and has witnessed some of the fastest motor car racing in the world during recent years. The two-mile course is built of four-by-four timber, and is 70 feet wide, supported by a steel structure. The track covers about 436 acres. The motor bus has not caught'on in this country yet, but there’s a different story to tell as regards its popularity in London. Last year 652,000,000 passengers were carried on motor buses in London, as against only 198,300,000 by the tramway services in the same city in the same period. Oil tail-lamps are very convenient,

but unfortunately they have a habit of jolting out, and there is no means of telling whether the lamp is burning or not. The result is that great anxiety continually prevails. It will often be found on examination that the wick has jolted down in the burner, with the result that the slightest bump extinguishes th© flame. A very simple method of preventing this can be carried out with an ordinary pin; Turn the wick to the desired height and push the pin through the wick on a line with the top of the burner. No amount of jolting can cause the wick to turn down.

——Many -warnings have been issued by magistrates presiding over sessions of the lower court, or over inquests (says the Post), as to the necessity of motorists complying strictly with the rules laid down by the city authorities for the use of public highways, and still another warning was given by Mr E. Page, 8.M., at the close of an inquest on the body of a victim of a recent motor fatality at Lyall Bay, Wellington. There is perhaps no law governing the matter oi which he spoke, but it is a question of hard, common sense. “The rule should be,” sale he, “that no driver of a motor vehicle, taxicar, or private car, should take liquor while he is in charge of that vehicle.” CARE OF TYRES. Tyre wear is the greatest expense the motorist has to meet. But. tyre wear can be kept within reasonable limits by exercising care and discretion. The quick letting in of the clutch and the sudden application of the brakes are conducive to rapid wear of tyres and put an unfair strain upon them. Turning corners fast without withdrawing the clutch also puts enormous strain on the tyres, and should be avoided. Bad alignment of the wheels is a source of tyre wear that may be - going on constantly. The front wheels are apt to “spread,” due to wear on the connecting-rod of the steering arms—the rod which runs across the car and connects the two steering arms. The joints wear and allow the wheels to move back slightly, with bad results on the tread of the tyre. The defect should be remedied at once. But the greatest cause of undue wear in tyres is under-inflation. In a high percentage of the private motor vehicles on the roads the tyres are insufficiently inflated, with great advantage to the tyre manufacturers as regards the sale of replacements, though their reputation sometimes suffers through this neglect on the part of the user. In fairness to the tyre makers, it must said they do everything in their power to induce users to fully inflate their tyres,' but the advice is not always taken. CAR BODY FINISH. A different mode of motor car body finish is adopted by the American makers as compared to the European and Australasian methods. American makers have gone in largely for sheet metal body work and stove enamelled finish. Such a methd of decoration has the greatest advantage when combined with the Yankee system of rapid mass manufacture, since only a few hours are necessary to get the flush required. On the other hand, the English, Continental, and Australasian body makers still adhere to the coach painting and varnishing methods which have made British carriage work admired all over the world, even before the advent of the automobile vehicle. Certainly the difference in ' cost is _ very great. But what may seem more important at the present juncture is the time-difference between tHb two methods. The fine finish got by ten or twelve coats of paint rubbed down and hardened between each coat, and the long intervals necessary for the real hardening, also the great amount of handwork of the most skilled variety, and the care and time necessary in the varnishing and the hardening of the varnish, mean delay in output and necessitate a big staff in the finishing department. The resulting product, however, js such that no enamelled finish can come near it as regards excellence of appearance and durability. There is something decidedly distinctive about a well-painted, up-to-date car body which no stove enamelling can equal. OVER DARKEST AFRICA. The journey from Cairo to the Cape, which is at present being undertaken by a number of daring young aviators, offers opportunities,- for romantic, if unpleasant, episodes', almost as vivid and varied as those written for the delectation of schoolboys. If. the travellers will avoid some of the discomforts of ordinary African travel by remaining at a cool altitude during the heat of the day and flying over instead of trudging through the thorn brake of the steamy swamp, they will incur others. They must land before nightfall, perhaps at an emergency ground overgrown since it was cleared and without a ground staff. The unwilling airmen may disturb a family qf lions or an army of warrior ants, while the least - divergence from their course or an unchecked, leak of petrol may necessitate a descent in the dominions of a cannibal Icing or in a village of mysterious dwarfs. , Perhaps the landing will be on an island in a fierce river, or into a swamp alive with repulsive, underfed or on some such place as is described in Rider Haggard’s stories. There©are stages of Africa not yet surveyed, where one cannot see through elephant grass 20ft high, and where there are forests into which .sunlight never penetrates. The enterprise is, apart from its scientific, commercial, and Imperial aspects, a very great adventure. THE LATE SIR JOHN ALCOCK. Tne death of Sir John Alcock, following a crash due to a heavy storm while flying a now machine to the Paris Exhibition, has resulted in the loss to Britain of one of her most famous and daring aviators. An idea of the determination of Sir John Alcock in surmounting almost insuperable obstacles in his meteoric career as an aviator is given in a recent issue of the London Daily Mail by a writer who witnessed the enthusiastic aviator start from .Newfoundland on his trip across the Atlantic. “I lived with him for weeks in Newfoundland, when he was preparing to fly the Atlantic,” says the writer in question, “and his difficulties then were enormous —nowhere to build his machine, and nowhere to fly it from, and yet he was unperturbed. When E-iynham crashed in his attempt to follow Hawker, and determined to rebuild the Martinsydo and start again, Alcock offered the assistance of his mechanics. The fact that Raynham "was a rival for the £IO,OOO did not weigh with him. I was with him when he started across the Atlantic. The weather was ghastly for flying—fog, wind, and_ rain —but that did not disturb the equanimity

of Alcock, or of Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, the navigator. If anything, Alcock was amused _to know that the wiseacres on the ground were predicting disaster. He started on the Atlantic flight having had only 12 hours’ sleep in the preceding 48 hours. He had a reputation for thoroughness in the service. Joining up as a warrant officer in the R.N.A.S. in 1914, he quickly became an instructor at Elastchurch. Obtaining his commission, he went East, and from Mudros was the first British airman to bomb Constantinople. His squadron became a terror to the Turks. When returning from one of his numerous bombing raids one of the engines of his machine —an early-type Handley-P'age—failed and he came down in the sea. He and his two observers swam ashore, and after wandering about the foothills for 12 hours he was captured by the Turks, who, kept him prisoner until the end of the war. While in Newfoundland ho was full of a new machine of his firm —Vickers— contemplated building-r-an amphibian, which would land on either sea or earth. It was in this machine that Jie met his death. His last official appearance was at/the presentation to the nation of the aeroplane with which he conquered the Atlantic. The ceremony took place at South Kensington Museum. ‘Jack/ as his friends called him, seems to have had a foreboding of the end. A few days before his death he said his luck as an airman load been great, and it was about time he gave up flying. ‘As Brown always/ says,’ he explained, ‘if you keep going long enough you are bound to catch it.’ Jack Alcock kept on just too long.” THE PNEUMATIC TYRE. That the pneumatic tyre possesses advantages oyer thc_ solid rubber tyre, quite apart from _ its being resilent, and therefore speedier, was demonstrated in an army transport rest, when a oolumrr of 60 solidtyred motor trucks, accompanied by a biff pneumatic-tyred wagon, which accommodated the band, was driven across America. On the day’s run ending at Wyoming City a terrible rainstorm transformed the tracks into a veritable swamp, through which the solid-tyred trucks were unable to make progress. The band wagon, with its pneumatic cord tyres, succeeded in forcing a way through, and landed its freight of 15 bandsmen at Wyoming, where they sat down to a grand spread intended for the whole company. The success of the pneumatic tyre under these conditions is significant, and it can be constructed to withstand the very much hard'er use under truck, or wagon service, giving also a mileage equal to that of the solid tyre. The vehicles can be built lighter, thus, reducing the wear and tear, or, per contra, permitting of increased loading, power for power. SHORTAGE OF PETROL. GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTION. WELLINGTON, March b. In consequence of the shortage of petroleum products throughout the dominion, the Government has decided to take control of distribution, and for this purpose has set up a Petrol Committee in Wellington to act in conjunction with the Board of Trade. Sub-committees have been appointed at Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin. These committees will deal with all inquiries relative to supplies, and in order to conserve the benzine supplies the requirements of essential users will receive preference. All orders in excess of five cases receive the sanction of the representatives of the Board of Trade in each centre. , Every oil importer will be required to prepare a list of daily supplies and to hand it to the committees of the Board of Trade. Every distributor of 100 or more oases will be required to supply a weekly list to the committees of the persons whom he has actually supplied, and the quantity. The Prime Minister stated that the petrol regulation gazetted on July 12, 1918, as to the distribution of petrol was still in force, and any breach of this regulation in regard to hoarding supplies or to any attempt to "secure supplies except through the committees would be dealt with as a breach, for which heavy penalties are provided. The shortage is merely temporary, and the stocks to arrive show that the present rigid distribution will not be necessary a few weeks hence. There is enough petrol available at the, present time to supply the essential industries, and there is no need for anxiety on this account, but is essential, and it is with a view to ensuring this that the present control of distribution is being instituted. The acuteness of the benzine shortage is demonstrated on every hand in the country districts (says the Auckland Star). In addition to putting hundreds of private vehicles out of commission, the famine in the precious spirit has called a halt to tin industrious running, of tractor and milking machine alike. Those who are still fortunate enough to bo able to travel by car, and have passed through the Waikato during the past few days, have been bailed up by farmers soliciting the sale of surplus supplies of spirit the cars are carrying.