Auckland A-Wheel

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 644, 22 April 1929, Page 8

Auckland A-Wheel

CARS AT AIR PAGEANT

IT was a great air pageant, Saturday's, but it was also a great car pageant. Threading along in that vast tile of cars was an experience with a zest of its own. Some of those who came off worst in the struggle will doubtless agree that the air. after all, is safest. There is lots of room aloft.

BIG red Winton lumbered along in the wake of a tiny Baby Austin, and all the King’s horses and all the King’s men would not have shifted that diminutive car from the crown of the road. A large de luxe Packard, giving a superlative exhibition of “hogging,” swept by in a cloud of dust raised from the tattered grass on the side of the road. Few who saw an opening ahead were content to remain in the file, blit dashed on with much gear-changing and braking and weaving about among the crowd. Those who were content to remain in the sluggish but steady stream

rl? -k generally came off best in the end. Even a £9OO job cannot challenge a bus in that vehicle’s rightful fairway, and those who stayed in the main current at least did not knock unoffending cyclists from their machines or ram their radiators into telephone posts in their desperate efforts to gain a minute or two on the road. Thus it was on the way in from Mangere airdrome on Saturday evening. Possibly the deluge of cars that streamed away from the parking places round the ’drome at five o’clock "was the largest ever loosened at any one moment hitherto in this country. Its imposing volume could only have been exceeded on the occasion of the arrival of Kingsford Smith and his crew. One hurrying limousine bore passengers on its running boards, two young men who bounced and clung more tightly as the car raced past its competitors. With telephone posts whirling by on one side, and the embarrassing adjacence of the cars they were passing on the other, the outside freight had to be alert and tuck itself close to the limousine, lest either one of it be brushed off and left lamenting.

The extreme efflux of cars from the city toward the ’drome never reached the dimensions of the returning traffic, when alt the cars that had assembled at Mangere over several hours earlier in the day were released practically at one moment. Nevertheless, there was some pretty dense traffic between twelve o clock and 2 p.m., when the crowd was gathering at the scene of the pageant. Newmarket, between these hours, and particularly at about half-past twelve, presented a remarkable sight, with the ordinary outward traffic of a Saturday mid-day accentuated many times, and all compressed into the bottleneck on the station side of the tram jails. In this space the cars were three or four deep. Pedestrians crossing the street had to thread their way nimbly among radiators old and new, between mascots and rear wheels. Some preferred to stay on the safety 'zones and regard the scene with amazement. The police arrangements, in the circumstances, were admirable. All along tiie route men were stationed, either to help in case of need or to direct traffic at strategic points. Before the aii-drome was reached at least six point-duty men were passed. Representatives of the Aero Club and of the automobile club gave creditable aid. Surely Ellerslie in its most opulent mood, or any country showground to which cars come from all points of the compass, never boasted more cars than those that gathered at Mangere. They were of every breed and vintage. Entering the environs of the airdrome by four separate entrances, they formed when the crowd was thickest a dense girdle round three parts of the central expanse. At some points, as in the members’ enclosure, the serried ranks widened into dense yet regularly arranged masses. 'Here the car enthusiast, diverting his attention for a time from the air, could find nearly all the latest models to examine and admire. Though favoured by a near approach to that holy of holies, the hangar, those in the members' enclosure were not best off when it came to turning homeward. They were at the “fag end” of the long loop of road that skirts the field, and their triple strings of motorware were held up for considerable periods while cars emerging from the other gateways were permitted at appropriate intervals to enter the stream of traffic. Here when the fray was thickest, when the shrewd won through at one point to be out-manouevred later on, was seen road congestion at its highest pitch. Hardly a foot of the road surface was unoccupied. Even the grass at the flanks parried its quota, and buses endeavouring to move against the current to reach waiting passengers had to rely on abuse and imprecations as auxiliaries to their technical skill. There were no serious mishaps—a felicitous circumstance undoubtdely due more to good luck than to the incautious methods pursued by a section of the drivers. There were even no serious delays, and that was undoubtedly due to the admirable control exercised by police and traffic officials, who stood at their posts in smothering dust, while ungrateful motorists ran almost over their toes. J.G.M.