MOTORING
The New Tax Although at first glance the new car-taxes seem calcu- lated to defeat. their own object and diminish rather than increase the revenue, I do not believe that they will turn out to be either so bad an investment for the Exchequer or so heavy a burden on the majority of motorists. Sixty per cent. is admittedly a lot to put on to what was already the heaviest motor-tax in the world, but when the total is-, added to the annual expenses I think very few owners will find themselves obliged, as the more pessimistic prophesy, to lay up their cars for any longer periods than hitherto. The new tax comes heaviest, proportionately, on the smallest car and therefore, presumably, on the poorest owner. An Eight, now paying £6, will pay £10, a Ten £12 los. instead of £7 los., a Twelve £15 instead of £9.
One and Eightpence a Week Those figures mean that anything from £4 to £6 extra must be allowed for in the three most popular classes ; that is to say about 6s. 8d., 8s. 6d. and 103. a month more than at present. It is difficult to believe that any owner or at all events more than a very few runs a car on so narrow a margin that these sums mean the difference between having a car and going without. Higher up the scale, where the difference runs from £8 for a Sixteen to £15 for a Thirty, the hardship must be presumed to be no worse. It is all very unpleasant but I cannot see that the tax is really damaging. I do not believe that it will result in a general return to the minute engine, nor that the use of cars will be so reduced that the quantity of petrol consumed will fall far enough short of the normal figure to affect revenue. Lacking special knowledge I am loath to forecast the possible effect of the tax on export but I cannot see why a higher tax on big cars at home should worry the user overseas.
The 25 Vauxhall The latest example of the biggest Vauxhall is a rather unusually interesting car. They have modified it in several ways, all of them unexpected, from raising the price by £3o to reducing the number of gears. In point of fact it is a different car altogether from its immediate prede- cessors ; the American side of the design is uppermost. The dropping of the third speed has made no difference to the driving comfort, the springing has been improved—or so it seemed to me—and with the slight reduction in weight the car has gained in-liveliness. The six-cylinder engine is the same size as before, 81.9 by 1o1.6 (3.2 litres capacity), and so is the pleasantly high top-speed ratio, 4.4 to T.
Comfort and Common Sense It has a number of good points, such as the outstanding quietness of the engine at all speeds, the admirable syn-. chromesh gear-change (nearly as good as the best I know), the excellent brakes and the firm road-holding. It will do about 75 miles an hour very comfortably on top, and about 5o on third ; it climbs steep hills very briskly, and its action in all circumstances is easy and gentle. It is a pleasant car to drive, light, handy and confidence-giving. The five-seated saloon is a good-sized roomy body, with a particularly commodious luggage-locker on the largest American lines. You can see out of it comfortably, whether as driver or passenger, and the seating is restful. On the day I drove it there was a singularly piercing cold wind. which found its a ay under the doors, but as it did the same thing to another car on the following day in precisely the same conditions, and the second car had, so to speak, hand-made bodywork, this may not be a legitimate com- plaint. In any case the Vauxhall is fitted with a radiator; engine-warmed air is blown into the car on the turning of a switch—a neat and simple gadget which will probably be widely copied next year At £345 I think the Vauyhall is good value for money. It has an effortless gait which should mean light upkeep bills as well as very agreeable travelling. A common-sense car.
The Valley of the Coln It is the slightest thing imaginable, a matter of hardly io miles from one end to the other. Officially it is a valley because presumably all rivers have them, and the Coln, in spite of its most fortunate avoidance of publicity, is a full- grown stream, but where that pleasant road runs there is very little of the conventional valley scenery. Although it is buried in the heart of the Cotswold, it is not overlooked by the hills, or, at least, not to any noticeable degree. It is just a byway along one of the quietest rivers in England, .and its only contribution to any impression you may get of a valley lies in its agreeable twistings, which lead you through tiny villages, round farmstead walls,.along the edge of the stream, up and down miniature hills, so constructed that it is quite impossible to drive at more than a car's footpace. Time after time you are brought down to a crawl from .a fifty-yards burst of twenty miles an hour, time after time you stop and forget time as you watch the stream and listen to the blessed silence all about you.
An English Trout Stream Most of it lies between two of the busiest highways in the West, the Cirencester-Northleach road and the Fair- ford-Cirencester road, but until you reach Fmsbridge you will never guess it—and that in spite of the fact that Bibury itself is halfway up, Bibury the undisputed showplace of the Cotswold countryside. In that very English trout-stream (on which be the peace for ever) you see reflected the walls and sometimes the bright gardens of the cottages on the banks, the silver image of the ancient cream-coloured stone, mellowed by the centuries. There is no more to it than that—a winding road by the river, half a dozen unspoilt vil- lages of the right sort, peace. It begins at Quenington, near Fairford, passes Coln St. Aldwyn and Bibury, Winson, Coln Rogers and Coln St. Dennis and ends anywhere you like in Chedworth Woods on the hill across the main road.
Ovoline Oil I have now completed 1,500 miles winter-running on the Ovoline oil I was sent to try a few months ago, on which I reported in February. I am no expert in lubricants and can only judge them by the way my engine starts from cold and runs when warm on each type: in which, I take it, I resemble the vast majority of motorists. As I wrote in my first report I found that " frozen " starting was exceptionally easy with this Ovoline. In that sinister Christmas week, when there were more degrees of frost than were ever good for man or beast, I did not have to ease the engine over by hand once before using the starter. I also thought and still think that the engine, now of venerable age and unquestioned slackness, ran a little more lively. It suits it. Further I discovered in the late burst of summer that a day tempera- ture of 75 Fahrenheit does not appreciably thin the oil. I drove the car really hard on those now forgotten hot days after Easter, when the thermometer was at summer height, and the oil-gauge showed much the same pressure at the end of ioo miles in town and country as it did in the cold weather. So far as my experience goes it is an all-season [Note.—Readers' requests for advice from our Motoring Correspondent on the choice of new cars should be accom- panied by a stamped and addressed envelope. The highest price payable must be given, as well as the type of body required. No advice can be given on the purchase, sale ,or exchange of used cars.]
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