MOTORIETIES

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 3, Issue 11, 1 May 1925, Page 56

MOTORIETIES

HERE AND THERE IN MOTORDOM

Sloped creens EFFICIENCY is at last commencing to conquer appearance. Nobody can pretend that a backward sloped screen looks well on a permanently closed body ; and many elderly owners use their allweather tops as improvised saloons, so that the car is to all intents a closed vehicle. But in the interests of those who often use such cars open, many manufacturers have begun to slope their windscreen pillars backwards. The appearance of the car unquestionably suffers, for the tilt line jars against every other line in the contour. Aspect, however, is a small matter compared to the backdraught created by the vertical screens so popular since the war. A journey of sixty miles in an open small car fitted with a sloped screen proved an excellent test, and all four seats were tried at varying speeds. It was possible to induce a little draught round the back of one’s neck in the rear seats when travelling at a good speed against a strong wind ; but the front seats seemed entirely immune, and at ordinary gaits there was no neck draught in the back seats. The ideal is still to come. This would take the form of a two-panel screen, adjustable for tilt, which could be

sloped back when the car is open, and fixed vertically when the allweather top is in service. But it is no easy matter to devise rigid adjustments for such large, heavy screens The Dazzle Question /COMMENTING on the subject of dazzling headlamps, the Royal Automobile Club states in a memorandum dealing with R.A.C. tests : —“lt is not suggested that finality is by any means reached, but it can be said that, whereas in 1920 there was no lamp possessing any real anti-dazzle properties, in 1924 there are several which can claim to be reasonably effective.” Unfortunately, the cost of such devices put them beyond the reach of the economically minded motorist. j Coloured Detrol TT seems probable that before long the larger petrol supply concerns will adopt a scheme already operating in America by which each brand of petrol may be recognized by its colour. A dye has been discovered which does not affect the properties of the fuel, and all motorists will appreciate the advantage of being certain that the brand of fuel which they have ordered is being pumped into their petrol tanks.