Motordom

Southland Times, Issue 21832, 8 October 1932, Page 15

Motordom

News and

Notes.

OF GENERAL INTEREST ON THE ROAD AND ON THE WING. THE LATEST HAPPENINGS. Speed Limit Opposed. It was decided to co-operate with the North Island Motor Union in securing the deletion of the clause limiting speed to 40 m.p.h. from the suggested motor regulations at the annual meeting of the South Island Motor Union. Daimler Novelty. The great Daimler novelty for 1933 is a 15 h.p. model with the well-known ! fluid flywheel and self-changing gearbox, to sell as a complete car at £425 in England. It has poppet valves, but this is not to be taken as indicating that the company is giving up the sleeve valve that has made Daimlers famous for their silence for a score of years. The newcomer is much the smallest car ever produced by the firm, but a true Daimler in looks and quality. Interesting Tests. According to tests conducted by experts overseas, it takes the average motorist half a second to get his foot on the brake pedal of his machine when an emergency occurs. This physical lag means that a motor Vehicle travelling at 20 m.p.h. has moved forward about 15ft, before the brakes come into action. At a higher speed the distance travelled before retardation starts, is of course, much greater. The importance of this delay before brakes come into operation is not realized by all drivers of motor vehicles, and therein lurks a danger that no doubt results in many road accidents. If motorists will remember that half-second “driver’s reaction,” and make due allowance for the delay in operation of brakes, it will add very materially to the safety of the roads. Cinder Stars. Of the five English dirt-track riders invited to come to New Zealand this season, two are old favourites with the northern public, Nobby Key and Ray Tauser. The latter, by the way, is not an Englishman, but an American, and during last season in England, he was ordered by the Ministry of Labour to go abroad, under the Act that allows foreign “entertainers” only a limited stay in Great Britain. Up till then, he had been riding for the Wimbledon team with conspicuous success, and after leaving England, he toured France and Germany, picking up the prize money wherever he went. When he visited New Zealand last year, Nobby Key never lost a scratch match. During the past season in England, he has been the star rider of the Crystal Palace team, and his winnings are the second biggest of any man in the sport. Like Nobby Key, the other three men, Eric Langton, Frank Varey and Tiger Stevenson, are all English Test riders. Concerning Lights. Motorists should frequently make tests for proper light focus. Place the vehicle on a level space facing a wall, the lamps being twenty-five feet distaut from the wall. Mark a horizontal line on the wall, which line shall be the same height from the ground as the centre of the lamps on the car. With lights on and both lenses installed, cover one lamp to shut off the light and move the screw or device in the other lamp, which regulates the position of the bulb, until the narrowed, horizontal beam of light shows on the wall. Then perform the same operation with the other lamp. Having focussed the lamp, tilt or bend each lamp until the top of the beam is no higher than the “lamp level line” on the wall. Average Speed. While the ordinary type speedometer gives the actual speed of a car more or less correctly, to most motorists it would be a welcome advantage to see at a glance what the average speed has been on a long journey. With this object in view, a new instrument, attachable to the dash, giving a direct reading of average speed, has recently been produced in England. The method of drive employed is electrical, the only connections required on the instrument being made by three wires. The recorder is wired up with the regular speedometer, from which it takes its distance impulses, and another wire to the clock, from which it takes the time impulses, and computes the average. A switch is fitted for cutting out the time impulses, so that if one stops for a meal the time so occupied, may, if desired, be excluded from the average. A recorder such as described would add considerable interest to driving, especially on long trips, Gearless Drive. That there are limitless possibilities for the Hobbs gearless drive—the invention of a South Australian, Mr Howard Hobbs—was the opinion expressed at a meeting of the company in Adelaide. Interesting details of successful tests undertaken in England were given. At the road trials the executives of two companies manufacturing light cars were present. Both of them indicated that their companies would be willing to construct sample models at their own cost and to pay royalties on future productions. A well-known manufacturer of commercial vehicles who put his workshop facilities at the disposal of the company’s representatives had cabled his willingness to develop, the invention as applied to heavy duty lorries at his own cost and on a royalty basis. A highlyqualified engineer and a recognized authority, who is chairman of a company manufacturing medium-powered six-cylinder cars, had written: “I am satisfied from the tests I made on our local test hill and the short run I had in the car, followed by drawbar tests, that the gear accomplishes what is claimed for it, viz., increased torque up to the point of skidding the wheels and automatic variation of this torque to the resistance.” Recently a vehicle fitted with the Hobbs gearless drive travelled nearly 2,000 miles, and in two days covered 500 miles through Wales. On dismantling the vehicle for inspection, the parts were found to be in perfect order. It is claimed that the invention has achieved every function claimed by the inventor.

BRITISH MOTOR TRADE IN A STRONG POSITION. MANY PEOPLE EMPLOYED. During the period of commercial depression, the motor industry of Great Britain has emerged with a degree of success far greater than was anticipated by its leaders, and greater than that achieved in any other national industry. Prosperity in the midst of depression must inevitably act as a stimulus and an encouragement to those engaged in the industry—an incentive to renewed endeavours and still greater activities, with the determination to meet all demands of road users in any or every part of the civilized world. To-day the motor trade holds fourth place in the great industries of Britain. It will rise assuredly higher in the scale, for nothing can impede the call for that form of transport which the motor vehicle alone can provide. Apart from the increased demand at Home, the increasing demand from overseas Dominions assure to the industry a very high position in British Empire trade. New Zealand, for example, purchased 91 per cent, of her total motor car importations from Great Britain during the first six months of this year, as compared with 18 per cent, in 1930 and 64 per cent, in 1931, and the position in Australia and other parts of the Empire is somewhat similar. Steady and gratifying progress in these markets is being maintained. A certain manufacturer recently announced new models and reports having received orders immediately for 32,000 cars. That particular factory is working three shifts daily—24 hours a day—in an endeavour to cope with the demand. Reports from all important markets bear testimony to the progress being made by British motor vehicles interests, and manufacturers at Home are facing the future with a spirit of optimism that, with the return to more normal conditions, the products of their factories shall, through their merits and with the support and co-operation of overseas distributors and public, secure a position of pre-eminence on the motor markets of the world. The great achievements of such producers as Sir Herbert Austin, Sir William Morris and others, and the records of the late Sir Henry Segrave, and Sir Malcolm Campbell, and the feats of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Sir Alan Cobham, and Hinkler, Mollison and others on land, on sea, or in the air, represent an ideal—the ideal of progress. A prosperous motor industry means prosperity in many different directions. Britain’s motor industry directly employs approximately 250,000 people, but several subsidiary industries, such as iron and steel, rubber, timber, glass, leather, cotton nickel and tin, for example, all of which the industry is an important consumer, rely largely upon the motor industry for their well-doing. Prosperity in the motor industry means prosperity to them and to the many thousands of people thus engaged. Those of us who can afford to spend more money, but refrain from doing so, should bear in mind a recent appeal by Britain’s Prime Minister, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, who said: “Wise and courageous expenditure should be regarded by all of us as an obligation which we must not avoid.” WHO’S WHO MOTORING PERSONALITIES. MR REGINALD DELPECH. Mr Reginald Delpech was responsible for the introduction of safety glass into Great Britain nearly 20 years ago and it is no exaggeration to say that he has done more than any other man to promote the safety of the motoring public. In 1912 he founded the Triplex company, so making the first attempt to place the manufacture of the glass on a commercial basis. Convinced, as anyone who understood the new product would be, that it had an immense future bound up with the development of the motor industry, he at first found great difficulty in persuading the public likewise. Before either motorists or manufacturers were properly interested, howexer, the war intervened, and car production practically came to a standstill.

A demand then arose for Triplex for naval and military use; its obvious advantages were recognized and it was employed in a number of ways unforeseen by its sponsor. By 1918 the Triplex factory had reached an annual output in the region of 120,000 square feet, but when Armistice was declared the emergency market ceased to exist. Mr Delpech was forced to begin again to educate the public to their need for Triplex glass. They were reluctant to learn, and at first only the unfortunates who had already suffered injury from broken glass in car accidents appreciated its value. The manufacturer did not propose to make Triplex only for the victims of accidents, however. He was determined that it should be recognized as an essential safeguard to every motorist.

He commenced an intensive Press advertising campaign, emphasizing the dangers of motoring without safety glass, reproducing newspaper reports of accidents and injuries on the road and doing everything in his power to force the fact of Triplex into the public consciousness. His efforts began to meet with a certain response, but he considers that the tide definitely turned in his favour in 1927. In March of that year Mr Henry Ford met with a motoring accident. Mr Delpech recognized his opportunity, and cabled to him in hospital: “Regret to hear accident. Trust you have not been tut by broken glass. Fit Triplex and be safe.’’ Evidently Mr Ford was impressed by the message, for some months later he contracted to standardize Triplex glass on all Ford cars.

The leading British manufacturers were converted very shortly afterwards, the first concern to fit the glass on all models being the Riley Company followed by Austin, Morris and others. The demand presently outgrew the resources of the original factory at Wellesden and new premises near Birmingham were found and equipped for the manufacture of safety glass on mass production lines'. MOTOR TRANSPORT OF VITAL IMPORTANCE. Nothing has established a stronger tie between rural and metropolitan dwellers than the motor car says an Australian journal. It has broken down the barriers of isolation and distance, brought in its wake a widespread network of good roads and provided the country dweller with new facilities for social intercourse and for the cheaper, fleeter transport of his produce.

As an instrument for decentralization the car has done a tremendous and vital work for Australia. Also it has granted to hundreds of thousands the gratification of the desire for fast, cheap, individually-directed transport that has been in the heart of man since the world was young. Also it has been a great educative force.

In its stride it has broken down insularity and parochialism, and has brought isolated communities, even countries, into profitable and friendlytouch with one another. In its progressive march it has had to sweep aside many restrictions and unjustifiable barriers. To-day it is fighting against restrictive legal fetters, and particularly against a non-co-operative control by railway monopolies. But the march of the motor cannot be stopped. It may be held back, but, as inevitably as day follows night, the motorization of Australia and of every other nation will go on. • And in its wake will follow new settlement, new production and new prosperity. TANK WAGONS TRANSPORTING LIQUIDS IN BULK. A MOST SUCCESSFUL METHOD. It is practically only since the war that the conveyance by road of liquids in bulk has been undertaken to any appreciable extent. These post war years, and particularly the last five or six, have witnessed a» development in this class of transport undreamt of prior to 1914. Not only has the volume of liquid carried on a single vehicle increased considerably, but the variety of fluids transported in this way is now almost limitless.

Foremost among the pioneers of this highly specialized branch of transport were Messrs Scammell Lorries, Limited whose well-known frameless type of road tank waggons first made possible the conveyance of liquid loads exceeding 6/7 tons in one tank. It should be appreciated that for the manufacture of road tank waggons probably more than for the operator, an intimate knowledge of the properties of liquids is essential, as every liquid has its own pecularities in handling and storage.

Scammell frameless tankers are built on the articulated principle, and consist of two portions—the motive unit or tractor, and a carrier or semi-trailer, which is partially super-imposed on the motive unit, and carries the tank. The outstanding feature of the carrier is that it is frameless, i.e., the turntable on the forward end and the wheel and axle gear at the rear are mounted direct on the tank which is specially designed to take them. The tank itself is circular in section, is enormously strong, and affords great lateral stiffness. The saving in weight by this method of construction will at once be apparent.

For the load carried, these tankers are the lightest and strongest vehicles made. The tank carriers are made either with two wheels or with four (two each side), forming with the motive unit an articulated six or eightwheeler. The six-wheelers have a useful load capacity of up to 10/12 tons, and the eight-wheelers up to 14/17 tons. This, expressed in gallonage, depends of course on the specific gravity of the liquid. Roughly speaking, the capacity for the six-wheeler is from 1,500 to 2,500 gallons, and for the eightwheeler 2,500 to 3,500 gallons. These articulated tankers provide great manoeuvrability and can actually turn with only one reverse movement in appreciably less than their own length. They can be driven into positions inaccessible to ordinary fourwheelers. The perfect interchangeability of all motive units and carriers is a feature of great economic value, as, with a fleet of either six- or eightwheelers or both, should the carrier of one and the motive unit of another be damaged, a complete vehicle can instantly be formed from the undamaged portions, thus only one machine, and not two, is out of commission.

Yet another advantage of this interchangeability is the use of different tank carriers where these are necessitated by varying classes of liquid. Asphalte, for example, may have to be carried for a few months, and fuel oil for the remainder of the year. One motive unit with two carriers solves this difficulty with the minimum capital expenditure.