Motoring Notes.

Waikato Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 2607, 8 April 1926, Page 7

Motoring Notes.

LIGHTING-UP TIMES. LIGHTING-UP TIMES. Thursday 6.7 Friday 6.5 Saturday 6.3 Sunday 6.2 Monday 6.0 Tuesday ,5.58 Wednesday 5.56 GENERAL. i '. . ' The ' increasing popularity of the motor was demonstrated during the Easter holidays in Cambridge, the through, traffic being a record. On Easter Saturday and Monday there were over .150 cars parked oh the Domain boundary.

A Palmerstonian, who recently made the trip overland from Napier to Taihape, in conversation with a Standard reporter mentioned that this route has been greatly improved during recent years and is no'w quite passable. Winding as it does in and out and over the ranges, a splendid panorama is often unfolded to the traveller, the ascent over “Gentle Annie,” which rises to a height- of some 3000 feet, enabling motorists and others using the route to view a particularly wide stretch off country. The erection of a bridge over the Kangitikoi river at Pokura now permits of the passage ofj vehicles without the inconvenience and delay of being towed through the river by horses, which for many years had been the practice. Leaving Napier at 9 a.m. Palmerston North was reached between 7 and 8 o’clock the same evening, the journey, which was over a distance of some 200 miles, presenting a wealth of beautiful scenic views to the travellers of the round aboht route. .

What the water troughs were to horse traffic, so is .the petrol kerb pump to motor traffic, only that it is suffering from restrictions. It is just as necessary that there 'should be petrol supplies always handy in these days ,as it was that horses should be, provided with water. Water troughs, however, were never taxed.

A city man when.buying his first car decided not to tell his wife anything about it until he knew how to drive properly, and then to spring a. pleasant surprise upon her. Two days before the date fixed for the surprise, he, feeling very pleased with his driving, offered to give his typist a lift home. On the way, a friend of the budding motorist’s wife saw him —the remainder of the story may .be imagined.

The British manufacturer is-now admittedly offering better , value for money than any of his rivals. Prices, apart, from the complete equipment that is supplied with, all motor cycles and motor cars, are below pre-war level and it is claimed that cars that are built in Great Britain to-day, could not- bo built to the same specification in any other country in the world at the same price. British manufacturers have proved that they know their own business best. Most of the factories are now more than fully occupied, and the difficulty soon will be not to find orders but to meet the demand.

It is only a few years since wiseacres were shaking their heads and forecasting that the day of the single cylinder motor, cycle was over. Temporarily, the popularity of the “one lunger” has waned, but fortunately, a few of the more important. English manufacturers refused to believe that this was more than a whim on the part of the, motor cycling public, and by sticking to their programmes and steadily improving the design, they have established the single-cylinder machine in an unchallengeable position to-day.

BY ROADSTER.”

A sarcastic railway man in the cast of the United States suggests to careless motorists: “Better stop a minute than for over.” Not to be outdone, a locomotive engineer olfers this one:—“Trj r running into one of our locomotives. They satisfy.” The manager of the Southern Pacific Hotel at Truckee is credited with this one:— Stop and let the train go by, Hardly takes a minute; You car starts out again intact And better still —you ’re in it. Some time ago a. rumour was current that Mr Ford was shortening the wheelbase of his car. There was no truth in it, however, and the only reason for the chaftge would have been to enable him to get morn cars on the road. This alleged joke is not really absurd. If all the cars promised for 1926-27 are actually put on the road, and the scrapping of old vehicles continues at its present negligible rate, there will be very little room for motorists. In America the congestion in cities is so great that bumpers are almost universal, and the time is approaching when congestion in our own country, combined with the lack of skill of many drivers, will make bumpers not only a reasonable precaution, but an absolute necessity. When they were , first introduced bumpers or buffers -were unsightly, and looked .like excrescences on the car. This was probably due to the shortage of . selection and to the difficulty in providing more than a makeshift form of_ attachment to all but the most popular of cars. Now, even the most casual survey shows that a bumper, even when purchased separately and fitted after delivery, may look part of the car and quite attractive. There are several forms of buffer, chiefly falling undei the headings of rigid bar with flexible attachments, flexible bar, and a combination of tlvo two.. Fittings are available for any make of , car, usually without any drilling or fitting. PICTITIOUS SPEEDS. Road tests, conducted in England, of dozens of makes , of new cars have revealed that the majority of manufacturers arc putting their cars on the road with their speedometers reading from 5 to 10. per cent fast: Timed over a measured distance-the car with an apparent speed of 50 miles an hour may be incapable of more than 17. From every point of view this inac•curate setting is to be deprecated.

One manufacturer who has a large 'Output sets his speedometer drives so ■that his cars have a fictitious speed of .755 m.p.li., representing an actual 50 m.p.h. The producer of a ear of similar power then finds that, comparisons are being made, and thus his car is the slower. He then sets his speedometer drives to read too high. Many of these ■ speedometers ‘‘ffre very high-class instruments, and they cannot be. blamed for the unreliability of the indicated speeds. When it is found that the error is present in the same proportion at all speeds, it is obvious that the drive ratio is wrong. »Some of the cheapest speedometers are fitted with an excess reading because they tend to run slow after usage. It is obvious .however, that some precision instruments are deliberately overgeared to give a false impression of the ear performance and benzine consumption. WHY IS IT WE DO IT? Allow the clutch to engage suddenly'? Fail to luvd the squeak that calls for oil? Overlook keeping the tyres properly inflated? Fail to release the (dutch before t shifting gears? Advance the spark when starting the engine? Try to start the engine with the switch turned off? Bush in the ,starting.button-when the. engine is running?