Comfort v. Speed
Is the early days of motoring every buyer and user of a car was concerned about the speed which it could attain. That was natural enough, for speed on the road was a new sensation. Moreover, the-horse-power developed per pound of engine or car weight was much inferior to to-day. Transmission and gears were by no means perfect, and in addition—and this is a point seldom realized—when roads consisted of loose gravel or rough waterbound macadam surfaces, there was much greater resistance to progress than on the roads of to-day with their smooth tarred or bituminous carpets. Till the War, and during it, the desire for speed remained paramount in the minds of the majority of car purchasers. Nowadays an in- creasing number of buyers and motorists are asking themselves whether there are not other matters which should take prece- dence of mere miles per hour.
And this change has come about for many reasons. First of all, almost every well-known make of car has speed and to spare. Then also, on the great main roads of the country traffic has now become so continuous that it is difficult to pass the car in front owing to the stream of oncoming traffic which is met as well. Therefore, the pace of the procession on main roads is governed by the speed of the average car, and I put this average speed at about thirty miles per hour. Hosts of small cars habitually maintain this speed for miles on two- track roads, which comprise the great majority of our highway mileage. Till the road widens to three or more tracks—a track may be taken. as 10 ft. in width-At is difficult to pass any car, and when you pass it must not be at a corner or in a " populous " place. The horse-power that you can use for nine miles out of ten with comfort and safety Is, therefore, comparatively limited, and only specially fast and powerful cars, whose power of acceleration is very marked, can overtake and pass with safety. Then, again, we must remember the increasing number of women drivers who, as a rule, do not drive as fast as their male colleagues, and the number of light trade vans. All these now encumber the road from the point of view of the driver of the fast car. There is an increasing tendency therefore amongst the average buyers of cars to take speed as a secondary consideration, while, on the other hand, good-looking cars provided with many useful accessories, and fitted with really comfortable body-work and cushions, are coming more and more into favour.
The new type of motorist comes from all ranks of society, especially from that of the superior artisan and the middle and professional classes. To possess a car means that the Joys of the open road can be tasted and week-end expeditions made with wife and family, with a long laze in the middle of the day when the luncheon basket has been emptied, while mother and children play hide-and-seek among the trees or ferns. Think of the wonderful change this means from the dingy back street, or the cramped villa, or the stuffy cinema Palace. And the touring motorist to-day is more concerned every year to see abbeys and cathedrals, picturesque views of rivers, mountains or lakes. Also the use of the camera a number of times a day pulls down the average of speed to quite low figures. Women also have had a great influence on motoring, as indeed they have on all human affairs. The average woman wants her car to "look nice," to be a frame to herself and to be comfortable to sit in. She is quite right. I remember the early days when no one paid much attention to paint work or design of bOdy, or bothered about the comfort Of the seats of a car. Then one used to sit for six and eight hours a day upon them, developing more aches and pains in one's back and limbs as the drive proceeded. Oh, how hard were the seats, while the clutch operation was heavy, the sPrinfln harsh and the body-work cracked and creaking. There is more comfort now in the seats of the cheapest car than there used to be in most of the highest priced vehicles of 1902. And a driver of a modem car to-day is less tired at the end of a long daY's run than we used to be after only a couple of hours. it There are those who still scoff at the idea of comfort. But
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t51R1Sto reason that if the driver has to sit in what is prae- 'may a chair for long periods—in the course of the year many hundred hours--the seat in which he sits should suit him and be thoroughly comfortable. No one would think of buying any kind of chair, especially an armchair, in which many hours of the year had to be spent, without being assured that it was comfortable. But in the ease of a chair resting on a solid floor there is mithing Moving or jolting beneath it. Until recently too little trouble has been taken to make the seats on a car really comfortable, and it is due to the woman driver, to a large extent, that in judging a car by firstly its comfort and appearance—often with total disregard for the capabilities of its engine—she has raised the standard of coinfort for the motoring world as a whole. Taking a parallel case from the railways, it is curious how until quite recent years any hard seat and any kind of unyielding cushions were thought good enough by the railways for the seating of their passengers. Most of us can remember the time when the average scats in third-class carriages were little better than hard boards, and when musty, dirty cushions in first-class carriages were common enough except on the very best trains. The motto of" eomfort first" in train services ranks with" Speed first nowadays.
Of course, we have not reached anything like finality its either the tyres, or the springs and cushions of motor-ears. To take an instance, a couple of years ago, though satisfied with a certain make, I began to use a new kind of cushion for my driving seat, which at once reduced fatigue, I should think, by one-half on a long journey. Shock absorbers of various types, to take another instance, have lessened bumps and rebounds very materially. And now we have the balloon tyre, which is another effort to eliminate discomfort when bad roads are being traversed. All this is in response to the public demand for greater smoothness in running and greater comfort. The purely speed machine will, of course, always endure, and in some directions the racing car of to-day is helping in the im- provement of the touring car of to-morrow. But the number of speed machines (apart from purely racing cars) seen on the roads to-day is not much more than one in a thousand, just as a racehorse compared with the working horse is a rarity. The public, in my opinion quite rightly, arc increasingly anxious to buy comfort, and mere speed is taking a second place.
MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU.
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