ARROL-JOHNSTON CAR AGENTS’ MEETING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1527, 31 July 1919, Page 26

ARROL-JOHNSTON CAR AGENTS’ MEETING.

After specialising on “Beardmore” Aero Engines for four years, the Dumfries Company attracts the largest gathering of 1919.

The meeting held recently at Dumfries of the Arrol-Johnston car agents was notable both for the record size of the attendance and for the modernity and quality of the product put before the gathering. Some eighty of the leading members of the trade, attracted by a brief specification of the new “Victory” Arrol-Johnston car previously placed in their hands, left their showrooms and garages to their respective seconds-in-command and undertook the by no means inconsiderable journey to Dumfries. As one well-known agent put the matter: “The ‘Victory’ car design is a design which will still be quite new in 1921. It is years ahead of any other model, and once a competent owner-driver sees it, be won’t have anything else. That’s why we’re all here.” Thus the “Victory” was tested and inspected to the uttermost detail by the largest collective body of critics ever sent by the trade to meet a motor manufacturer —and the individual trader himself is half-way toward being a designer nowadays. The result, as expressed at the conference under the chairmanship of Mr. T. C. Pullinger which followed, was that the only chassis or engine alteration demanded, outside very minor details, lay in a matter of accessibility to one particular chassis part. The point was conceded by Mr. Pullinger and will receive attention. But, as the designer, Captain Brown, smilingly said, it was a point which arose simply because the agent and the public do not yet realise that the aircraft specification material used in the “Victory” gives an actual formula of results which renders accessibility to the part in question quite unnecessary’ Then came the expression of enthusiastic compliments. Mr. Leverett, London agent, rose to say that the specification was 50 per cent, better than that of other cars, and that the magnificent chassis w'as miles ahead of anything he had yet seen. Mr. Tom Garner, of Birmingham, stated that it w r as the very finest chassis he had ever seen. Mr. Tozer followed with the remark that it was a beautiful job—a magnificent job. Mr. R. M. Wright said that it was a very fine c.hassis and the best springing he had ever sat upon in his life. Mr. Welch, that he was very much impressed with the splendid chassis and that the speed furnished by the engine was very remarkable —and so on, ad infinitum. And such praise from such very frank personalities has a weighty value.

The price of the car at Home, “all on,” with body, electric lighting and starting, spare wheel and tyre, speedometer, electric horn, etc., was fixed, after discussion, at £7OO, and that of the chassis at £6OO. Figures as to cost of material and labour were gone into, and, to the benefit of the actual purchaser who is hit by prevailing conditions, a bargain was struck whereby both manufacturers and agents agreed to a mutual cut in profits for the sake of advertisement and reputation. Finally, after applause had greeted Mr. Pullinger (who was in particularly fine form), Captain Brown and the ever-popular sales manager, Mr. Willy Lowe, the meeting terminated in a very excel-lently-cooked and festive dinner, whereat the Arrol-Johnston family, reunited after years of war, disported itself in happy fashion. Mr. Croft bought at auction a pastry model of the “Victory” for 35 guineas, on behalf of the Traders’ Benevolent Fund, Mr. Pullinger reffiought it at the same price, and many an agent put up his ‘five guineas towards the good

cause. And presently the voices of eighty agents in chorus were carried upon the evening breeze. As to orders, the Arrol-Johnston Company, by means of a clause in its agency agreement, has limited the size of deliveries, their policy for 1919 being rather to buckle their wonderful plant down to a reasonable output of cars of extraordinary value than to essay mass production of an ordinary pre-war model.