Motordom

Southland Times, Issue 22210, 30 December 1933, Page 12

Motordom

News and

Notes.

OF GENERAL INTEREST ON THE ROAD AND ON THE WING. THE LATEST HAPPENINGS. January Pleasures. Besides its other attractions, January is quite definitely Car Month. Picnics with the youngest and next-to-young-est; evening drives in the country with some poorer or ailing friend, to whom a car spells bliss; excursions to the beach or, river; week-ends or perhaps a whole holiday a-tour. . . .yes, January certainiy makes the wheels go round! Aero Engine’s Fine Record. A Siddeley Lynx engine fitted in an Avro aircraft has just completed six months’ work in the service of the British Hospitals Air Pageants. During the period it completed some 400 hours running without any top overhaul and even at the conclusion of the tour there were no indications of this being necessary. It was the only engine to complete the tour without trouble or replacements of any description, which, considering the conditions under which a tour of this kind must necessarily be operated stands out as a truly remarkable performance. Trolley Buses. Trolley buses have arrived in Perth, and local opinion is emphatic that they are superior in every way to the noisy and jerky old trams. London has a trolley-bus system which operates over 18 miles of routes in the south-western suburbs,and a bill to provide for the replacing of trams on 90 miles of routes is on the stocks. Leaving out company expenditure, it costs 25 millions to construct Australian tramways. The time is coming when most of the 25 millions will have to be written ofl as a dead loss.

Profile Masculine.

Do women really enjoy driving when there is a man in the car? A private questionnaire which I have been conducting on this subject gives as result emphatically “No!” However efficient Eve may be when alone or with other women, evidently she prefers to sit back and look slightly fragile when there is a man to take the wheel. There seems to be something fascinating about the sight of a masculine profile intent on the road ahead, unmoving for mile on mile, while steady hands control steering and gears, brake and headlights. In fact, one woman of my acquaintance confessed that she first decided to marry her husband when she saw him at the wheel! When he first decided, is not recorded; maybe it was when she fixed her adoring eyes on that profile.

MIRANDA MARVELL

Sweet are the Uses of Mobility.

It is, of course, during the holidays that the car really comes into its own. The desire of the motoring pair to “cover the waterfront” or to reach “the hill beyond a hill,” or even to keep on the move, postulates a means of transport. If some would argue that holidays are times when the car should be forgotten and forgiven, and the rusty art of walking brought to light, it must be answered that the motorist does not see things from that point of view. The car is the essence of the holiday. Particularly of the economical holiday. Trains, motor-coaches, and buses carry heavy charges as well as passengers, and their range of country is limited. If holiday-makers set oft in search of New Zealand the car is the key. The “Morris Owner.” Maurice Sampson certainly seems to be popular in English motoring circles. Rarely can one open a motor magazine nowadays without seeing his name tucked away somewhere. In the November issue of the “Morris Owner” he gives his impressions of the Ten Six —the new six-cylinder model in the Morris programme for 1934. The article, written in his bright and breezy style, makes good reading. “I like this car, and I would like to take it for a real tour,” he says in conclusion. Although I have not seen the Morris in question I agree with him, wholeheartedly. The writings of Maurice Sampson can be relied upon. Whether the motor driver deserves a halo or a tail has nothing to do with sex classification is the contention of Lady Alice Seton. She defends in a forthright manner the marcelled head of the woman motorist. “Isn’t it about time we stopped behaving like a lot of silly little urchins and yelling ‘Yah!’ at a driver just because she happens to be a women?” The writer forgets one thing. If the motoring world were entirely populated by people who agreed with each other, it would be a terrible place. There would be nothing to talk about, and Lady Alice would have no justification for writing jeremiads. George long, F.R.G.S., a very old contributor, writes about the interesting ancient labyrinths to be found scattered about the English countryside. Most of these are freely open to the public,

and to the motorist in the look-out for something unusual and essentially different, they form an original venue for a half-day run. Articles by A. F. Houlberg, who explains the need for the Interceptor Device and the manner in which it functions, and by Margaret Bradley who goes into the “Philosophy of Clothes,” all combine to make this number complete and attractive. Diagnosis. Motor cars to-day are so amazingly reliable that when trouble does occur, as it occasionally must in this imperfect world, it finds the average private owner singularly unprepared and helpless, says an English journalist. In the days of my youth every driver had to be a more or less skilled mechanic,, for it was quite the exception to reach one’s destination without trouble of some sort. On numerous occasions I have had to practically dismantle my car by the side of the road. Now given a fairly clear idea of the functioning of the internal combustion engine, the correction of a fault, or even a temporary repair, is by no means necessarily a highly skilled job. The main difficulty usually lies in correct diagnosis. Nevertheless, when faults develop, they are often extremely puzzling, even to the expert. A faulty plug or a sticking valve may cause all sorts of baffling symptoms, and elimination is usually the only method to. pursue if one would trace the trouble. ’ Even tyres can set almost insolvable problems, as I found out only the other day, when one of my front tyres suddenly took it into its head to lose pressure at an abnormal rate. Having satisfied myself that the valve was doing its stuff, I naturally suspected a slow puncture, in all probability one of those small cracks which sometimes occur next the rim. I removed the tyre, inflated the tube and plunged it into a bucket of water,

BETWEEN TWO CARS NASTY COMPLICATIONS. | AN AMUSING SHORT STORY. BY E. N. ROBERTS. It was the fourth time in one week that I had entered that garage to find the car absent. Elsie is very proud of our saloon. She takes it out at every possible and impossible chance—the result being that I myself am, to all intents and purposes, rendered earless.

For over an hour I awaited Elsie’s return, meanwhile composing various telling bon mots on the equal rights of all humanity. At last she arrived and I strode out to accost her.

“Are you aware, Elsie,” I began in a voice as of one who does well to reprove, “that I have been -waiting to use our car for a full seventy minutes? Had this been the first occasion I should have said nothing. As it is ” “My dear man,” interrupted Elsie with inappropriate gaiety, “if you want the car at all sorts of unreasonable hours, there’s a perfectly simple way out of the difficulty.” “And what, pray, is that?” I asked incautiously.

The Obvious Solution,

“Buy me a baby car!” replied the girl, tripping demurely into the house. For the moment I was merely outraged, but after awhile I found myself thinking seriously of Elsie’s suggestion. After all, might it not be worth while? I toyed with the thought of having the big car almost completely to myself, and found it pleasant. Next day I called and inspected a baby car. I entered it. I drove it. I bought it. Then, with that strange exaltation which comes to a man when he knows he has spent far more than he can afford, I tooled the little coachbuilt saloon homeward for exhibition to Elsie. When she set eyes on it the dear girl embraced the car and myself in turn.

A right merry few days went by. Elsie drove her car. I drove my car. I wondered what pecular mental kink had prevented me from thinking of the two-car-per-household idea long, long ago.

On the Saturday morning, as I parked the big car in town, I met Coolplum. Coolplum is one of those distant cousins who are yet ever with us. I meet him on the average twice a day, and this by no design of mine. He is a Large hearty man with a red face which seems to have been forced up through his collar much as one squeezes scccotine from its tube. Some people may like large hearty men with faces as above, but I am not of their number. Frankly, I abhor Coolplum. “Ha, ha! Ha, ha! Toothill!” he whooped by way of greeting. “I say, old boy, I know you’d like to do me a favour. I’m best man at a wedding at Greater Bungton, and it's miles from anywhere. You don’t mind lending me your car for the day? I’m counting on you, old man!”

I glowered dully at him. Elsie and I had arranged to make a motoring trip that week-end. Of course, we could go in the baby—in fact, I myself had thought of suggesting it. “Well, Coolplum,” I commenced, icily withal, “ ”

“There, now, I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” he thundered exuberantly, striking me on the shoulder. ‘Td better take the car now. I’ve a few things to do this morning and it’ll come in useful. Thanks, old man, I shan’t forget this!”

“No Coolplum, you will not forget it,” I retorted bitterly, to the retreating taillamp. “You will remember it as a precedent whenever you desire to filch my car from me again. But, Coolplum, you will not get it. You will meet with a flat refusal in future—for the very good reason that I find you personally well-nigh insupportable!” And So Home. I wished I had thought of this little speech before my relative was out of earshot, fox- I considered it neat and meaty. I returned home at lunchtime to find Elsie ready, with all necessary paraphernalia, to start on our proposed trip.

“Where’s the car, John?” she exclaimed in surprise, as I hove in sigh. “Coolplum has lent it to himself. That man is a self-contained pestilence,” I returned shortly. “We ourselves will go in the baby car.”

“But—but, John!” cried Elsie on a rising scale, staring blankly at me. “Cynthia borrowed the baby this morning! She said she was a bridesmaid at a wedding at—at Greater Bungton, I think it was. I thought we were going in your car—”

Wild-eyed we gazed at each other, and there was axx interval for the rearrangement of mental perspectives. “Confound Cythia!” I whispered at length with controlled fury. “A plague on Greater Bungton! And as for Coolplum—Coolplum—ah, Coolplum!” Through sheer emotion I was perforce silent on the subject of Coolplum.

but not a bubble could I see. I replaced the tyre. Next morning it was practically flat. I removed and tested it again with the same result. There appeared to be nothing wrong with it, and yet it gently subsided as soon as it was replaced. Finally I inflated the tube almost to bursting point before submerging it, and a string of tiny bubbles appeared from the base of the valve. I then screwed down the.nut which holds the valve in place and all was well.