MOTOR WORLD.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14726, 3 August 1921, Page 8

MOTOR WORLD.

NOTES AND NEWS. TERRIFIC CAR SPEEDS. . An average speed of 111 miles an hour was attained by Count de Zborowski’s mystery car, Chitty-Bang-Bang, driven by the owner in the, lightning short handicap motor race of five miles and three-quarters at Brooklands recently, says the London Daily Chronicle. In March, the count won the same event during thrilling racing at Brooklands w r ith this car, which is of 300 h.p., with engines entended, originally, for a Zeppelin. It then travelled at an average speed of 100-2 miles an hour, but Count Zborowski predicted that this could be easily exceeded. Chitty-Bang-Bang’s 111 miles an hour is not, however, a record in actual speed. This is held to have been established at Daytonia Beach, Florida, in April, 1920, by Mr. Tony Milton, who, with flames bursting through the hood of the ear, attained a speed of 156 miles an hour. After passing the tape, Mr. Milton calmly drove his car into the sea to put out the fire. CAR ECONOMY. Hundreds of car are waiting for the much-prophesied fall in cars before purchasing (says an Australian paper). The whole thing depends on w'hether we are to persist in regarding the motor-car as a luxury or whether we are to look upon it as a business asset, in the great majority of cases. Nowadays, there are very few motorists who •frould admit, or would be justified in admitting, that they use their motorcars purely for pleasure. The greater majority expect the motor-car to bring in returns of -some business or other. In every case the main pointis: that the moton-owner’s time is valuable, and the car is a time-saver or maker. Suppose it costs £1 a day to use a ear in connection with one’s business, and that two hours a day is saved by i doing so. In a working day of: eight hours, it impossible to do in three days that which would . have taken four. It has given the business man an extra day at the cost of £3. Now, if his time is w-orth £IOOO a year, the car has proved itself to be an actual economy. If the car is ./worth only £5 a week to a business house, it is a saving of £250 a year to have one. CARAVAN CLUB. The formation of a Motor Caravan Club in England marks another phase of motoring, .but, as the objects of the new body are to place caravans at the disposal of members, and to organise general camping stations possessing a certain degree of permanency, in different parts of the country, it may not commend itself to the general body of motor tourists. Commenting on this possibility, theAutocar, without disparaging the gregarious instincts of the human

race, inclines to the opinion that a club offering its members individual caravans, in which to tour where jthey will, would be a far preferable arrangement, from the recreative view, for people -whose normal life is spent in towns and cities, than, as is suggested or inferred, to form camps. The journal is also right in saying that what constitutes the mpst desirable environment varies with different people, for where some will prefer the seaside and others the valleys and mountains, the majority, possibly, would deliberately shift camp from day to day, for the sake of change.