TEIERE are one or two wry pretty problems to be
solved by the man who goes this week and next" to Olympia to buy a new car. In the ordinary course of events he knows, within limits, what sort of car he will eventually choose, after. the usual strayings from the path of common sense, the toyings with the idea of buying something completely un- suitable just because it has this or that pleasing gadget, the sudden yearnings after a 90-mile-an-hour road-racer, all petrol-tank and bonnet, when what he really needs is a sober- sided , five-seated saloon. These are natural and passing aberrations to which everybody with ambition or a soul above plain transport is liable at regular intervals. They rarely affect his ultimate choice, which lies, as he knew before he passed the turnstile, between at most three machines, all costing much the same. When nearly all is said and done it is price that governs the choosing of that car ; not necessarily the lowest sum, but certainly a definite figure that represents the maximum he can pay with comfort. At a given price he has until this year been offered a wide but not a disconcerting choice of types. A dozen makers may have angled for his £250; but the bait they presented did not differ very much in each case.
This year that choice is an embarrassment, the riches of many inventions. There is the problem of the gear-box, if it can still be called that. There is hardly a '• straight " box left in the show, the nearest approach to one being those that have an easy-change third. Most of the others have either easy-change to all gears, to second as well as third (which amounts to much the same thing), or a freewheel, or the Wilson gear with or without a special kind of clutch or flexible drive. There is no crash-box on the list and the driver who rejoiced —as why should he not ?—in bringing off lightning changes with a clutch and gear that in other hands yielded noisy failure must submit to the ignominy of having things done for him. There are automatic clutches and various arrangements that do most of the things for you that have to be done before the car is running in top gear. The last are, however, not by any means universal or, so far as I can see., cheap, and generally speaking the buyer will get one or other of the now normal transmission-systems. -
At all prices, from the absolute lowest upwards,- there are cars with easy-change gears and provided he has no pet aversion or particular weakness it does not matter, from
that point of view, what car he chooses. Austins have synchromesh boxes ; be:ginning with the £100 Seven. Arm- strong-Siddeley have the Wilson, on their cheapest car, 2265. B.S.A. have the Daimler 'fluid flywheel and pre-selective transmission at £210; Citroen, now a British production, a freewheel with gynclifornesh'; Crossley, pre-selective ; Hill- man, Jowett, synchromesh ; Humber synchromesh with freeivheel ; Lagonda pre-selective; the 8 h.p. and the 12 h.p. M.G. pre-selective ; all the Morris range synchromesh, the 10 h.p., 18 h.p., 20 h.p. and 25 h.p. having also an automatic clutch as well as a freewheel ; all the Rileys pre-selective, four of them with automatic clutch ; Rolls-Royce, synchro- mesh ; Singer, Rover and Standard, synchromesh and free- wheel ; Sunbeam synchromesh; Talbot pre-selective, with a new form of automatic clutch ; Triumph synchromesh and freewheel ; Vauxhall synchromesh, and Wolseley all four, in different models. As there is as much difference of opinion as ever as to which system is the best, the innocent buyer, if he have any doubts left, can certainly 'comfort himself that all are good.
The new worries for the innocent are the' independent frontwireel suspensions, at least three of which, Vauxhall, Singer and Citroen, are to be had in the £250 and £300 class ; and the slightly lunatic " air-conscious " design of coachwork. It is not everybody's choice, though from my own experience I have no objection to it. It provides admirable road- holding and its principles are intelligent and intelligible. I have heard disconcerting stories of one example of it, stories of- loud clattering noises set up when the car is travelling over setts or specially vicious potholes, but these are in one isolated instance. I do not think there is much doubt but that it has proved itself good enough to find a place in any chassis in the near future without criticism. I would not refuse to consider a car because it had front-wheel spring- ing, nor would I choose it merely because of it. It occupies or should occupy much the same position as any of the easy gear-changes. It is a step forward in design and has been judged on its merits.
The more advanced examples of the " aerodynamic " body is likely to prove an irritation to the simple-minded buyer. Some of these designs are grotesque,. some. decidedly attractive, a few, it is conceivable, scientific—that is to say, that a chassis fitted with that type Of body should give a better performance, either in speed, acceleration or economy in oil" and petrol or in both, than a sister chassis fitted with the More familiar sort. It is risky work prophesying about any- thing in in Motoring, but I feel fairly safe in predicting that it will be a long time before the case for the new type of ultra-stream- lined'body is proved. Very few cars exceed 60 miles an hour on the rOad in this country and still fewer for more than a minute OIL two at a time. Unless the benefits of these " air-cheating " desigtts -are distinguishable at the average running speed of the -average car, not much more than 40 miles an hour now and likely, as the roads grow more congested, to decrease before long, it seems to me that the addition to the car of all the. necessary tinwork will be so much deadweight.
--Yet it is all very specious and plausible stuff and when to the tale Of decreased windage and other easily understood claims is added a graceful and knob-free outline, our innocent at Olympia may well fall into confusion of mind and buy a car that is as uneoinfortable within as it is beautiful without. Tempta- tion of the most insidious kind awaits him at every turn.
cile:may as easily buy a particularly satisfactory one. If it is the air-line that worries him he can find on half a dozen ; stands, showing ears of all powers and prices, bodies that are ; pettedly, comfortable and yet look as if they stood as good a ! chance as any of getting through the wind. Rileys, for cainiPle, have biie or iwo'really beautifully designed' bodies, ; and so have Rovers. The Austins have taken on a new and greatly improved appearance with their modified streamline. I partithlarly Ince the new light Vauxhall 14 h.p. and, for its lines, the Citroen Twelve, both in the open and closed types. This chassis, incidentally, is one of the most interesting in the
shy having front-wheel drive, independent suspension of adentiiely new design to both front and rear axles, " mono- shell " coachwork in which luggage can be bestowed behind the back seat,' a new overhead valved engine and the dash-board pOsitiOirfor the gear-lever. Hillman, Humber, Triumph, Morris and a number of others are showing cars that suggest an accept- ance of fashionable ideas tempered by sense and discretion.
Among the best exhibits are these : the_Slolls-Royce Continental short saloon and the limousine ; the super- charged 8-cylinder Triumph ; the chiAsis of 'the Alvis Twenty, a fine ;Piece of work ; the new "Light Sin'" B.S.A. 12 h.p., which has an engine similar to that of the Lanchester of the same' denci"mination,; the Jowett„,y/bich I still _consider to be a leader among common-sense cars for the hard-up.; the Sunbeams and the new 25 h.p. straight-eight Daimler.
JOHN PRIOLEAEG
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