640 MAKES OF MOTOR-CARS HAVE EVOLVED IN 35 YEARS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19201, 15 October 1930, Page 6

640 MAKES OF MOTOR-CARS HAVE EVOLVED IN 35 YEARS.

To-day’s Signed Article

Specially Written For The “ Star

By

John Ramond Stone.

Since the birth of the American motor-car industry 35 years ago, exactly 640 different makes of passenger cars have been presented to the public. This was accomplished by the introduction of from one to 51 new cars in the United States each year. Also, to-day there are but 45 standard makes of passenger cars accounting for an annual production which has averaged nearly 4,000,000 units for the past several years. These are a few of the interesting facts in connection with the history and present development of America’s greatest industry which are brought to light in a digging expedition conducted through the voluminous files and records of the automotive division of the United States Department of Commerce.

OTHER FACTS worthy of notice are that of the 186 makes of passenger cars introduced prior to 1905, only eleven are in existence to-day. Between that year and 1910, inclusive, 129 other makes were introduced, of which five remain to-day. From the end of 1910 to the end of 1920, another 167 makes were manufactured, and of these eleven still are available to the motor-car purchasing public. During the next ten years, research discloses, only seventy-seven cars appeared, but eighteen of them still are in demand. According to A. W. Childs, chief of the automotive division, with whose guidance the “ digging expedition ” picked its way through the maze of statistical data, the years 1900, 1902, 1907, 1908, and 1916 witnessed the presentation of the greatest number of different makes in the history of the motor-car. Automotive Nomenclature.

Department records reveal the popularity, in their day, of cars bearing the of “Adria,’’ “Anchor,” “Car Nation,” “U.S. Long Distance,” and the “Vogue.” A study of the roll-call of American motorcars reveals the efforts at automotive nomenclature which were made by early American manufacturers to attract popular interest. Natural history was represented by the “ Badger,” the “ Beaver,” the “ Black Crow,” the “ Buffalo,” the “ Crow,” the “ Eagle,” the “ Falcon,” the “ Fox,” the “ Lion,” the “ Wolf,” and the “ Petrel.”

Names like the “ Climber,” the “ Glide,” the “ Meteor,” the “ Perfection,” and the “ Mighty Michigan ” indicate attempts to impress the public with the operating characteristics of those cars. Then there were the “ Sphinx ” and the “ Hazard.” History and geography evidently influenced the naming of the “ Marathon,'* the “ Mecca,” and the “ Peru,” while mythology undoubtedly inspired the christening of the “ Centaur.” Other makes now nearly or entirely forgotten %vere “ Everybody’s,” the “* Storck,” the “ Krit,” the “ Alpena,” and the “ Nance.”

Most of the cars introduced in the early years of the industry have passed into history, but several companies which pioneered in the automotive trade of those days still are in active existence. Others have lost their identity through amalgamation. March of Progress.

But whether a line lived or passed from the scene of competition, its influence contributed to the gradual evolution of the motor trade. It is a long march of progress from the chain-drive, low-powered, slow motor-cars with rear tonneau entrance

which plied the streets in the late nineties, to the silent, swift, graceful and highly efficient passenger cars of 1930, but each labourer and technician who helped to manufacture the 640 different makes of motor-cars which appeared in the intervening years contributed to that development. Without the experience gained by those repeated attempts to capture the public automotive demand, there could not have been the vast total of more than 29,000,000 passenger cars which are registered to-day throughout the world. Nor could Americans alone be operating to-day more than 23,000,000 passenger cars instead of the relatively few thousands which were on the streets at the beginning of the century. If one traces briefly the history of almost any one of the hundreds of cars that have come and gone, the contribution of that car to present-day transportation efficiency becomes strikingly apparent. A new company, envisaging the future motorisation of the world, obtained capital, technicians, and plant and, after much experimentation, presented to the public an*automobile which to-day would arouse only amusement, but which, in those early years of the industry, was considered an amazing mechanical innovation. Economic Value. Sales were made and a few scores, hundreds or even thousands appeared in American cities and hamlets. These new vehicles, out-numbered by the horse-drawn carriages, were first viewed with uncertainty, but each one of them stimulated public interest and turned the thoughts of mankind to a new form of transportation. Once these thoughts became crystallised into accepted ideas, the future of motor transportation was assured. To-day, throughout the world, nearly 35,000,000 motor vehicles of all kinds, passenger cars, vans, and buses are moving human beings and commodities at a rate of speed many times that of the slowmoving equipage travelled in the motorless era.

The economic value of that expedition of transport in an age when speed is an essential part of industrial and commercial life, is obvious. It can be said without doubt that the early motor-car and the vision and determination of the pioneers in the American automobile industry are very largely responsible for one of the most essential elements in our modern economic life. Universal interest is being shown in that great movement for more and better highways, which means that motor transport will continue to grow in every land. (Anglo-American N.S. —Copyright.)