MOTORING
Motor Show Prospects Next week's Motor Show at Earls Court should be well worth seeing, if only half the prophecies we have heard come true. I do not gather that the inevitable " secrets " which will he disclosed at the last moment include anything startling in the way of designs, but from what I have read in the makers' announcements I am sure a new and higher level of general worthiness has been reached in the new cars. There is an impression of steady improvement in the things that really matter which is reassuring, though I have so far looked in vain for one or two changes which I consider important.
There are one or two cars which have some claim to be called light, as lightness is regarded in our factories—the new Ten Morris and the Ten and Twelve Vauxhalls are cases in point—but so far as one can judge such weight reduction as has been made is to be found chiefly in the smaller sizes. As soon as the weight exceeds 26 or 28 cwt. in the cars over t6-h.p., it is still the American which leads the way. Humbers, in their new 85 miles-an-hour Snipe, have cut the weight down to only a little over 3o cwt. (which probably accounts in large measure for the remarkable performance claimed for it), but I fancy they are the only firm who have succeeded in keeping the weight of a 28-h.p. car as far below the two-ton mark. That is the chief " secret " I should welcome : the cutting down of the British medium- powered car's weight so as to give it a chance to compete with its foreign rivals which it would then certainly beat with a handsome margin.
Easier Gear-changing There will be more easy-change gears, mainly using synchromesh, but generally speaking I do not think much headway has been made with other forms of change. Certain Americans will be found with overdrive, as before, but the only British example, the t6-h.p. Riley which had a 3-speed box fitted with overdrive on top and second, is to be sold now .,under the Morris group's control) with a normal 4-speed box, synchromeshed. This is really matter for regret because believe that if the overdrive system were developed, we should eventually get a real simplification of transmission— at least from the driver's point of view. Is there any reason why the normally geared fourth speed should not be the overdrive, thus affording the quickest possible automatic change down from top to third ?
I.F.W.S.
A few more cars have independent front wheel suspension, and the torsion-bar, originally introduced into private cars by Citroen, is used both as a method of springing and as an auxiliary to check rolling, but in this we are not yet as far advanced as either the Americans or the Germans. Perhaps advanced is not the exact term, as it is by no means every independent system that is in every way better than the orthodox one. Not all of the best I have tried give the same roadholding on corners as the plain arrangement. If I were undergoing the torments of choosing a new car at Earls Court I should make very sure by experiment that the independent springing was rock-steady at high speeds on all curves, easy as well as sharp.
Bigger Bodies The 4-cylinder engine will be found to have made some progress, for cars of 14 and 16 horsepower have this most practical and usually most economical type of motor. That is an encouraging sign. Another is the promise of bigger bodies broadcast in the circulars. Nearly every maker says his new cars are roomier, and certainly the photographs I have seen bear out the claim, although in most cases the extra space has been achieved by putting the engine still further forward in the frame and increasing that ugly frontal overhang which in some cases puts the car com- pletely out of drawing, destroying the balance. Better Vision With this increase in body-size goes another important advantage, the extra width of the screen and the improved vision. I was comparing the screen of an old 16-h.p. car of my acquaintance, which has a body built by a one-time very famous and " exclusive " coachbuilder, with one of the latest of the wide cars, which was a 12-h.p., and I found the screen of the latter was no less than six inches wider than that of the old one. Better driving vision means greater comfort as well as greater safety (the two are really very closely related) and, as at the last show, driving and passenger comfort has been carefully and practically studied.
Sponge Rubber and Pneumatic Seats One example of this is the increased use of sponge rubber upholstery. I am still not convinced that this or anything else is really better than a well-contrived pneumatic cushion, but I daresay cost has a good deal to do with the reluctance of makers to develop the latter. I know from at least fifteen years' experience over the best and worst roads in Europe as well as with the best and worst springs ever put into motor- cars that once you have got used to the vibration-absorbent properties of a slackly-inflated air-cushion that carries your weight without shifting it an inch, in a sort of pocket hammock, nothing else seems as comfortable. But upholstery of this kind, with proper pressure distribution, is not cheap.
In the Marsh It is one of the most curious places in the world, the more so because it has power over some and not over others of those who see it for the first time. This sounds like claptrap of the first order, and to those beyond the influence of that expanse of sea-bitten grass it is no doubt just that. All the same, there are things about Romney Marsh, with which is included Walland and Dunge, which have never been satisfactorily explained to at least one of those who find it curious. I do not like to attempt a description of the effect it has on these people, nor hazard a guess at their mental equipment. All I know for a fact is that there is that about the Marsh which sets it apart from every other part of most ancient England.
Voices in the Wind It is a sea of stiff dark grass, tough strands through which the wind sighs without rest, night and day, calm and storm. It is at sea-level over the whole of its area of some 25 square miles except for a faint swell in the western half called the Isle of Oxney, a 20o-ft. rise that, in the right light and at the right time of day, can loom over the flats like a mountain. It has villages in it, all of them with that bleak air which makes you think they have just dried off after being submerged in the sea for a century. There are birds and beasts in it, wild and domestic ; but although the Marsh is never still, never silent, it is not these you hear. What you hear is an indistinguishable, undefinable murmur, a throng of voices that have just that instant fallen silent. You are sure you have heard, and when you listen you know that you have just missed hearing. There is nothing to hear but the wind in the grass, a high, thin note that never varies.
That is how it affects some people. To others it is just a windy expanse which was apparently rescued from the sea a thousand years back or more. Look again and it seems perhaps that the sea might at any moment reclaim it. Whether or not you consider the evidence of survival in it conclusive, whatever you may think of these unheard noises in the grass, it is one of the most peaceful places you will find in a month of idle Sundays. JOHN PRIOLEAU.
[Note.—Readers' requests for advice from our Motoring Correspondent on the choice of new cars should be accompanici by a stamped and addressed envelope. ' The highest price payabl2 must be given, as well as the type of body required. No advic: can be given on the purchase, .sale or exchange of used cars]
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