The Light Car

Progress, Volume X, Issue 8, 1 April 1915, Page 275

The Light Car

Success after an Uphill Fight

We take credit to ourselves that from the time the light car was first mooted as a commercial and practical possibility, we have persistently and consistently impressed upon both the buying public and the Dominion motor agents that such a machine was not only an absolute certainty of the future, but that its development was a thing to be encouraged in any way and from every viewpoint.

We got little encouragement. The public, used to high powers, heavy chassis, and heavier pieces, had become accustomed to the idea that motoring was an expensive luxury to be enjoyed only by the fortunate few, and the agents then making their per centage on big prices for individual sales, saw no immediate need to hustle after an opportunity of the future, while they were doing well in the immediate present. Both views were foolish, but that of the public only in minor degree. At that time the buyer was not the very learned man in matters motoring that he is to-day, when his conversation is so filled with remarks about “floating axles,” “three-point suspension” and “tongue rods” that it takes something of a mental conjurer as well as a thorough mechanist to follow him. He was simply an individual who wished to purchase a machine, and who was absolutely at the mercy of the agents with whom he came in contact, as to just what they chose to tell him. Perhaps we wrong the agents in supposing that they did not do their best, but we would not like to think that the representative agents of those days

were such short-sighted or unthinking men. . It had to come as a natural thing; it was the swing of the pendulum.

Look for a moment at the history of motor progress and its truth must be admitted. First we had the old "one lungers" of five to seven horse power, which, if they did call for more repairing than driving, yet were among the first cogs of the wheel of progress. Then came the gradual multiplication of cylinders and power until the man who was sitting at the wheel of anything less than a 40 h.p. touring car felt inclined to apologise for using a fair portion of the road. This was the time, not so long ago, that farseeing people began to realize that the expense of motoring had become so formidable that unless a halt was called, the available buyers with

sufficient money to finance the purchase would soon become exhausted. In fact in the Dominion they nearly were exhausted, for we know dozens of cases where purchasers mortgaged both houses and farms to buy cars, not to mention the three years terms of purchase some of the agents were obliged to give in order to effect sales. About this time also the man with the shorter purse had an equal likeness for the sport, began to make his voice very plainly heard in a demand that his needs should be attended to. A few of the manufacturers seemingly saw among these buyers, an unexploited field that would, if properly worked, show good results, and the pendulum began to swing back. Naturally many mistakes and failures came on the market at first, mostly due to the fact that manufacturers attempted to build miniature “big cars” instead of cutting off from the heavy car designs and starting out afresh. But in accordance with the law of supply and demand the light car had to come, and it is here. The thoroughness with which both agents and public are selling and buying at the present time is an endorsement of opr contentions of years back,

and although we stood much contradiction and a good deal of ridicule for the views we expounded, we are content to know that hundreds of manufacturers are caring for the public want, and that an altogether more fully qualified and competent class of agent now helps to educate the buyer. Some agents, back in those "dark ages" shaved our views and encouraged us to "rub it in," but until the voice of the public drowned that of the unwilling agent, the manufacturer did not realize that his market was ready for him. Since August last the demand for light cars has been enormous at Home, in fact Ave have advices of at least four of the larger firms Avho before the outbreak of Avar Avere comfortably filling orders with their usual staff, AA r ho arc noAv working night and day, three shifts, and are yet so far behind with their deliveries that they are putting much of their work out to other firms. The reason of course is obvious. The light car is not except in special cases subject to commandeering by the War Department. Many of those AA r ho had touring cars have freely given them for service at the front, and others Avho in happier times found the upkeep of heavy cars no hardship, have for reasons of economy been obliged to lay them up and take to the cheaper form of motoring rather than be without a car. All these circumstances have of course combined to increase the demand enormously, and have put the light car, with a rush, into a position to-day that it might have otherAvise taken it years to attain. But the fact that it does. occupy that position and is holding it with all due credit, shows how great the need was for such a machine.