Motoring
Making the Old Car Do
THERE will no doubt be protests: against this statement, but I maintain, as I have done for many years, that you do not discover how good your car is until you have had it a long time and until you have driven many thousands of miles on long and arduous tours, preferably abroad, where yoit 'are constantly meeting the pick of the world's cars. Obviously, if your car is not much you will never reach that stage. Long before you prida journey to the Western Glens, to the Pyrenees, to Connemara, or even to the Riviera you will have got thoroughly sick of it and bought another, but if you have chosen a real com- panion, such as I have the supreme fortune to own, you will begin to appreciate its innumerable virtues at about the time when other people are choosing their third or fourth. There is nothing like respectable age to bring out a good car's qualities. An unashamed truism, per- haps, but one that is in considerable danger of being overlooked. in the yearly rush of " entirely new " or " re-degigned " models. There are certain things every sensible person wants frorn his car if he is going to keep it after driving, say 10,000 miles, but the first is absolute reliability. Very few cars are guilty today of that celebrated misde- meanour that years ago we used to call bieaking down. They do not break down, they very seldozn-let you doWn, save in the matter of accessories and the like. The lights fail, occasionally, in just the same merry old way, and jets get choked and brakes wear out, but the car goes on. If it is a very good one, let us frankly say an expensive one of the hand-made sort, it will continue to go on. If it is a cheap one it will stop going on in just that carefree manner after a certain time. It has every right to. Two hundred pounds' worth of material, skill and workmanship cannot give you seven hundred pounds' worth of dependability. After a due pause, with a bill, the cheap car will start again, not quite as good as new but definitely better than it was. The other car will go on and on, ageing so imperceptibly that you only notice her years in the cut of her radiator and the line of her body. Presently she becomes really old, long out of date so far as appearance goes or fittings or even comfort, yet modern as tomorrow where consistency of behaviour is concerned. Day after day, month after month, year after year she gives precisely the same results. It may be that at highest engine-speeds she is a' mile or two slower ; it is just as likely that it is your own right foot that forbears to press too hard on the accelerator, out of sympathy for a gallant machine. In all ways she contrives to give you the same deep pleasure she did on the day she was pronounced as well and truly run-in and you could do what you liked with her. That is true reliability, compared with which a 1934 " sweeping skirted tail," or whatever it is called, is less than nothing. The 1934 skirted one, sweeping tail and all, may very likely outlast your 1927 plain car, innocent of ringlets, and become in her turn an object of patron- izing interest to the children of 1940, but in the mean- time you know a secret happiness with your ancient one that very few new owners realize. When the times come to start off, perhaps at half a day's notice, to the other side' of Europe, it is with your own comforts that you are concerned and not with the special needs of the car. She has none, but you will want clothes and food. You claim hourly attention, she wants fuel and oil and nothing else. Never sell a good car because she is old, unless she is old enough to be frail and therefore beginning to be expensive. The really good cars of this world are not nearly so numerous as you would think. If you doubt this view, read the columns of second-hand cars for sale in any of the motor papers. There you will see names of glory and splendour linked to prices that are very far below those mentioned in the catalogues. The owners of these cannot, in reason, be all going abroad." Whatever the reasons may be they allege for selling, not one can credibly be ridding himself of a car he really likes, unless he is too poor to keep it. Generally speaking I believe you can take it for granted that a car is sold for one of two reasons only—because its owner cannot afford its upkeep, or because its performance is falling off. As in the:buying, of everything in the world, from houses to a packet of cigarettes, you run a certain risk in buying a car. You may get a very good one, you may not. If you do, you will be a fool to sell it before you must. There is another very real joy in owning an old and good car, and that is in " making her- do." You cannot give her tail a sweep or make a skirt for it, except at absurd expense and no profit, and I do not imagine you want to fasten a chromium-plated meatsafe in front of her radiator to make her look as if the engine was where it is not—that hideous fashion that has swept the world and, in its passage, some of the most eminent and sober-sided concerns off the feet of their common sense and their taste.
You cannot, luckily, reduce the clearance to the ridiculous point achieved by some of the " nut-shell " types, nor can you, save at forbidding cost, fit self-changing gears or freewheels, but you can do quite a lot to give her and you a new interest in life on the open road. Have you ever tried the experiment of fitting lighter tyres ? I do not necessarily mean tyres of narrower section, though if your suspension is first-class this can sometimes be done with complete success, but covers of lighter weight. If your engine is of much lower power than say 24 you will be astonished at the difference heavy tyres make to its output. The weight of the covers normally fitted to my .own 16 h.p. car is about 21 lb. In the course of various experiments I have tried covers weighing between 18 lb. and 28 lb. With the latter the maximum speed of the car was reduced by no less than 12 miles an hour ; with the former the liveliness, the acceleration and the hill- climbing were improved to an extraordinary extent. The lighter cover cannot last as long as the heavy, but all good tyres arc so long-lived today that the loss in wear is nothing compared with the gain in efficiency. Perhaps this is a very old discovery. It is a very useful one. It is easier, for instance, than fitting new carburettors. Save in very special circumstances where a particular type of carburettor is proved to be unsatisfactory, I do not believe in making a change. I have tested carburet- tors for years (I will test no more) and I have very seldom found that there was any serious difference, in the long run, between any of the best makes. In that long run you will find that apart from one or two unimportant features they are all much of a muchness. This is worth remembering. On the other hand I have found it worth while fitting a first-class magneto in place of a coil-and- distributor. I have found—others may not—that it gives easier starting and certainly higher maximum speed and greater flexibility. I remain content with my vacuum petrol-feed because it is reliable and because the tank is of a decent size. In case of failure one can get home by refilling it at the rate of nearly a gallon a time. I once had to. I would try the experiment of using colloidal graphite in the sump if the oil-consumption is heavy. I hardly like to write down what a difference this concoction has made to an aged engine. It is quite enough to say that for the past 5,000 miles the consumption has been far lower than it has ever been, so low, in fact, that one begins to worry over the reliability of the oil-gauge. I do not know what disadvantages there may be, but if I discover any I will announce them as they appear. Finally, for the moment at least, there is the all- important question of your bodily comfort. By scrapping your horsehair-and-spring upholstery and fitting either pneumatic or the new rubber filling you can transform your car. I have used pneumatic cushions, of various designs, for ten years, and I have no hesitation in saying that they are the most important development of coach-, building. They completely insulate you from vibration, they hold you rock-steady all day and they do not,. contrary to popular prejudice, get hot. They weigh very little and they are the easiest type to keep clean. Finish the vibration-abolishing job by fitting a spring-. spoked wheel and replacing your carpet-mat with a sorbo-rubber one. You will be surprised at the peace that follows to feet and ears. None of these changes is expensive, and every one will put you aeeper in love with
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