ROADS AND THEIR USERS.
THE NEW ROLLS-ROYCE.
WITH the increasing differentiation and complexity in the design of modern cars and the enormous number of new makes on the market, the difficulties of the potential car buyer have proportionately increased. To-day it is useless simply to " want a car." To the ordinary man a hundred makes will all appear desirable. The buyer must make up his mind from the outset on two selective factors : (1) The exact purposes for which he wishes to use his car ; (2) The price that he is prepared to give for it. With these two factors clearly in his mind, the appa- rently embarrassingly large choice at his disposal will narrow down to two or three makes in the exact class of car he wants. The true function of any particular firm of motor manufacturers is to supply the ideal vehicle for one particular kind of use at one particular price ; not to attempt to please everyone at everybody's price. This is undoubtedly the principle on which the Rolls-Royce firm have acted in designing and .putting on the market their new 20-h.p. model. They are providing for the man who wishes to have the very best, that is on the market and for whom high price is not prohibitive, but who yet has no special "rise for so large and expensive a car (both in upkeep and initial cost) as the 40-50-h.p. Rolls-Royce or the Lanchester or Napier, or any other of the so-called super-cars. We may imagine our hypothetical buyer of the 20-h.p. Rolls-Royce as a man who is in no way a motor expert, but likes to drive his own car on occasion. For mechanical enthusiasts there are perhaps other makes which have gone into more experiments than the Rolls- Royce firm and might supply him with a more interesting possession ; but for the ordinary man who wishes for the pure and simple pleasure of motoring the 20-h.p. Rolls-Royce should prove ideal. In a trial run which I recently had in one of these cars I thought one of the most striking features was the attention paid to the comfort and pleasure of the driver and passengers. An instance of this was the extraordinarily effective action of the brakes, which seemed to be able to pull the car up very quickly without causing any tendency to skid on what was an extremely greasy day. Everybody who drives a car occasionally and for pleasure world particularly appre-
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