Mote/ging The Coining of the World-Car SOME weeks ago I
discussed on this page, in an article on Everybody's Motor Car, the widely differing require- ments _d_those readers of The Spectator who had asked me to advise them in the choice of a new car. It can only be coincidence, but it must be admitted that it is a strange one, that during March and April the tone Of the weekly inquiries changed. The Budget was in the air, but, as everybody knows, its provisions are the only official secret known to be inviolate until the day itself—possibly the only thy in the world of any kind. Checking the dates of my correspondents, particularly those who wrote from the other side of the world, I discover, as you might suppose, 'that by no known means could they have heard of the reduction in the car-tax when they wrote: Yet, with a change of front that suggested that they had been in Mr. Neville Chamberlain's, confidence from the begin- ning, they ask for large cars. They do not ask for little larger than the type demanded by the considerable majority. during 1933-1934 ; they ask for nearly twice the horse-power. The sort of income, occupation, relaxa- tion, that Eights, Tens and Twelves were believed to suit'best are, since about the first of April, satisfied only with -Fifteens and Twenties.
You might expect that point of view from the other side of the world, though I remember a number of inquiries last 'year for a choice of the better light cars, the sort' that' had accomplished astonishing journeys across a couple of continents or half a hemisphere, but not—before the Budget—from home tax-payers. Letters reached. me from -India, Canada, British East Africa, Nigeria,. Aus- tralia, Rhodesia and the Far East and almost without exception I was invited to recommend ears of at least 20-h.p. ' In some cases a fair price was glowed for ; in other k there seemed to be a considerable misunderstanding' of the market rates a home today. There is no c-arthat I Would 'retornmend, of more than 16-h.p.,- selling at less than close upon £270. I do not, in fact, believe that such a car exists, yet several readers of The Spectator, writing from peculiarly secluded portions of the Empire, if not of the globe, lightly speak of reliable cars of 16 or 20-h.p. to last five years or more for £230. On the other side is the reader who tells me that she has had no. fewer than four examples of one •Of the largest; best known and most expensive cars in the world, and all four have been un- satisfactory. You will admit that it is not very easy to compose a satisfactory reply to such a letter. I have done my best. And here is another aspect of the matter, not perhaps entirely pertinent, but none the less fresh to most of us. A Cape Province reader says : --". Itirriay be of interest to you to know that motorists here reckon that by buying a car in England, driving it in _England for several months (the cost of import duty is thereby greatly reduced) and then shipping it to South ,Africa, the cost of the owner's steamer ticket is saved—if he had bought the same car in South Africa." , These considerations apart, the fact emerges that at last the sensible motorist all over the world is realizing that the majority of the admirable small cars he has bought for the past ten years have been too small. Too small in engine size, too small in accommodation. I say engine size advisedly. There are, as we know, several' light cars on the market with a performance far in excess of what may reasonably be expected of their rated power. These are the artificial product of the highly artificial and regrettable conditions, created by the horse-power tax. Nobody makes better, faster or more reliable pocket-size cars than we do ; nobody extracts a quart from a pint pot with More brilliant success. There was a threadbare , phrase after the War about Twenty horse-power for Ten. Occasionally it was almost afiplicablegenerally it was a catchword without real meaning. Today it might read Thirty for Ten without exaggeration and be true of an unbelievable number of cars. Lately I have been testing some of the latest examples of peculiarly British en- gineering genius, and although I am sure that their type will-disappear in a very few years and that; whether we , live in Nigeria or Scotland , in India or Surrey, we shall; insist upon and therefore get full-sized cars, I foresee ' their fate with purely personal regret. They are such very good little motor-cars.
' The new 10-h.p. Triumph, for instance, of the class they call the Gloria. I cannot remember any small-engined car of the type that more successfully imitates the big machine. It is, in fact, a perfect example of the Thirty- for-Ten. Its four-cylinder engine has a cubic capacity of just over one litre and is taxed at 110-27 10s. in future, • it is to be assumed. It is a really fine piece of work- . manship, built, it is very obvious, with the big car idea. It is not cheap, as prices for Tens go now, costing £285 for the saloon, but then nothing.aboul it-suggests cheap- : ness. It is designed and made to a high standard. You get the impression that its designer said—" Let us make a good car that shall go pretty fast when required to do so, but without making a fuss about it." That is the salient feature of this one of several Tens of the type that has • brought such credit to the British industry.
• I was going to refer to the Triumph as a light car when • my eve fell on the specification. It weighs 23 cwt., just one Cwt. less than My own 16/65-h.p. - open car. You : cannot call that a light car. In point of fact, it weighs a good deal more than at least two cars of three times the rated power I know of. Least of anyone I defend weight as such. In my opinion all cars, without exception, weigh too much and I believe that the next development will be radical weight-reduction. It is the only sensible, the only economical way of increasing efficiency. Yet those 23 cwt. of the Triumph are perhaps its best adver- tisement. It deals with them and with the weight of its passengers as if its engine were of a good deal mote than 10-h.p. It can be reliedupon to do a mile a minute on top, 45 on third, and as much as 30 on second, and that, in my view, is quite enough. Its chief attraction, as I say, is its manner. It is quite obviously a high-class car, equally obviously one that is built to last. Whether it•will or not nobody can say, but it is plain that every precaution has been taken to ensure that it shall. It " rides " beautifully at all speeds and it drives better. There is, for the old hand, a certain feeLabout every good car that is as :definite:to him as it is difficult to define to anybody else. It mennc, for example, that he would take it unhesitatingly on the longest and most trying journeys —such as, for instance, the Monte Carlo Rally in which, last winter, this particular model greatly distinguished itself. It means that you do not worry about the possi ,- . bility of failure anywhere except in externals. , It means peace of mind. The Triumph has it. It is not a " light " car. It is a very pleasant, well-bred car that happens to cost £285. For more and for less you can get more—and less. The Triumph gives you what every experienced driver wants—confidence.
That is a roundabout way of reaching a definition. One or two of my ()verses correspondents have put; it much niore simply. They want the sort of performance the little Triumph gives you but they want, as it were, a much bigger Triumph. They are not interested, as you or I might yery well be, in the astonishing fact that with 10-h.p. you get 30-h.p. -.results. They :want the 8r0;14, with the same results hitt-Mare room for themselves and their belongings. They want the world-car and it is extremely likely that they will get it within the next few years, and that,,it will be the direct descendant of such cars as the Triumph. T. he world-car is the car for every- body, the sensible-sized car with plenty of power yielded at a sober engine-speed. Nobody ' really wants a little motor-ear,, any more than they really want a tiny house or a tiny garden. Circumstances may still for many years limit the size of the last two, but not of the ordinary car. We, in particular the British industry, have learnt in the lean years of the h.p. tax to get that quart out of that pint pot. It should be easy for us now to get, say, three quarts out of a half-gallon jug, or, far better, a gallon 'out of a four-quart can. The world-car which may be no dearer and cannot, in reason, be much faster than the Triumph type, will owe its success in large measure to the Tens of today.
JOHN PRIOLEALT,
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