Higher-priced and Lower-priced Models H IGHER in the price scale, par-,
ticularly in that difficult £600- £900 category, the choice, never very great, is perhaps a little wider this year thtan last, although the abs'enee of one or two foreign makes and at least one Well-known British make must reduce the difference. I do not know why, but the man who has £700 or so to spend has far greater difficidty in making 1115 choice than his. richer or poorer lirother. The man to whOin £1,000 or £3,500 is a Practical price to pay has plenty of types to`ehoose from if he includes the World's markets in his survey, and the Man whose limit is £200 or £300 finds Most of the makers of Europe and sonic of the biggest' American makers bid- ding for his ' cheque. Alone amid millions, your £700 man has long been embarrassed, not by the richness biit by the poverty of choice. His has always been the difficult case as 'Mich in England as on the Continent. If he turns to America he has a far wider choice. That must naturally be so, given the number of ears . and their nicely graduated scale of prices. now on this Market, but for some reason—probably for the excellent one that it keeps its eye on tile majority for purposes of Profit--our industry has done more for the poor and the rich than for the sub- merged remainder, The comparatively few ears for this rather neglected buyer are none the less among the best and most practical' in the Show. - As we all know, value for Money the prominent quality of Practically. every 'machine made today 1-19 4.6 say 1400 or £500. There is very little rubbish about and a very great deal 'of sound, stuff., It should be more difficult than it was last year to buy an indifferent car. You may quite easily buy a ear which is not really suitable for your needs, but it will be a job to find a bad one. When you get to paying More than £400 or £500 you get some- thing in addition to that excellent value for money, something that most En- glishmen prize very highly. It is qualLy, and quality of the kind that is shown in mechanical finish, in the absence of anything in the shape of Make-shift in the design and con- struction of every part, after the Manner of the hand-made product. There is, of course, something to be said on both sides when mass production Versus hand-made production is dis- cussed. A first-class mass-produced ear should within narrow limits exactly resemble its predecessor and successor in the series, and there should be no Working difference between any one of 4 batch of several thousands. The hand-made car built by a conscientious firm that can afford it will have the same characteristic. It will not matter at all whether the one you buy is number 472 or .724. Both systems are liable to the same defect, which is what might • be- called unevenness , of pro- &fiction, ' usually owing • to indifferent work superiiision. Nevertheless, there is a strong appeal to everybody who likes machinery, in any form in the car With the . qualities,. you, are generally assured when : you . pay the difficult prices in question. Although they are too few, the British cars in this category are desirable . possessipus. , Taking them alphabetically, and therefore without classification, there is the Alvis 20-h.p. in either the normal Or the speed type. This is a car which I understand has been considerably im- proved during the last two years, and high hopes are entertained of its taking its place amongst the select company of' unobtrusive very fast cars. You can buy a saloon for £800 on the normal chassis and three different kinds of body work on the speed chassis for £700 and £850. Then there is the 20-h.p. Arm- strong-Siddeley landaulet at £745, and the Aston Martin, perhaps the most expensive 12-11.p. car made. Its 4-cylinder engine has a cubic con- tent of only litres and it costs in two-seater form £610. Its. performance is probably beaten by not more than half a dozen cars in the Show, and it is one of the best-designed and finished machines we make. A special sort of car _perhaps, not a car for .everybody, but one of very special interestiincr terivei who siitgfosr those love , Oriving for The 3-litre Sports 20-h.p. Crossley salnOn comes. into the category £705, as does the new 20-11.p. light Daimler, which is altogether a fresh type for this factory. It is fast, as I know from experience, quiet, smooth, and -gives you a lively performance. That costs £675 and £695, according to body work. The Humber, if you admit large and sedate coach work, conies in with the
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Pullman, limousine or landaulet, at 1735, and with a Sedanca at £895. I am not sure whether the Railton . is officially a British car or not, but it may be allowed the benefit of the doubt. Its closed models cost 1633-678. There remain only the Talbot "' 105 " and 3- litre selling at between £615 and £895.
Only eight British cars to be had between £600 and £900 or so. It is. very curious. You have an astonishing choice up to that 1600, a car for every £10 so to speak ; at the bottom of the scale almost a car for every £1. It may be argued that this proves the excellent value for money you get in a British car that (perhaps) you need spend no more than £595 unless you are climbing into the four figures. None the less, it is odd that this price class should have been so neglected. Admit the foreigners to the class and you have nearly forty additional models made by Alfa-Romeo, Auburn, • Austro - Daimler, Chrysler, Delage, Gardner, Graham, Hotchkiss, Hup- mobile, Lancia, La Salle, Minerva, Packard, Panhard and Voisin—though not all of these • are being shown at Olympia. Probably if you include those foreign cars, American and conti- nental, that ,are not at the Show, the figure will be very much higher. Never- theless, as I have said, you can pick out a very good, car indeed between £600 and £900 from either the British class or the whole lot.
The Prosperity Car Where the choice is-really aStonishing • is' at the very bottom of the scale. The poor man should certainly be thoroughly embarrassed by the choice offered to hirn and it is easy to imagine the buyer fresh to Olympia who has not much technical knowledge or, if you prefer it, no real predilections for one type or another, for one make or another, spending nine excessively unhappy days, and emerging on the ninth with only one clear idea left in his head—that he has probably chosen the wrong one. Between 1:1.00 and :ENO,. 1936 offers him the following. Eleven Au Ains with six different sorts of bodies for from £102 10s. to £188 ; 11 Morris models in six different styles of coachwork, of 8, 10 and 12 h.p. for prices ranging between £118 and £187 10s. ; one 9-h.p. B.S.A. Scout at £145 10s. one 9-h.p. Fiat two-seater at £168 and one four- door pillarless saloon at £185 ; 8 Singers, also in half a dozen body styles, costing from 1120-£199 ; one 10-h.p. Citroon saloon at 1198 ; a closed and open Trojan at 1185 ; 6 Jowctts of various kinds of 7 h.p. and 9 h.p. of 2-cylinders and 4-cylinders at between £152 10s. and £197 10s.; 5 Standards presented with as wide a choice of coachwork for 1135-1195 ; one two-seater 8-h.p. M.G. at £199 10s. ; one 12-h.p. Renault Saloon at £198, and 2 Wolseleys of 10 and 12 h.p. at £165 and £185.
That is 51 cars of as widely varied a type as can be imagined for less than £200. They range from 7 to 12 h.p., they are equipped with every form of coachwork except the limousine or the landaulet, they are fitted out in a manner which would have been rightly regarded as luxurious only a few years ago, and with certainly no more than half a dozen exceptions they will all do nearly a mile a minute. And there may be more. These were all I have been able to count so far.
There, if you like, is an unmistakable sign of returning ease of money. The fact that the same number of people every year buy cars costing between £1,000 and £2,000 or more means nothing at all. There are always almost everywhere enough rich people to keep up that average, which in any case is a very small proportion of the total. That it is necessary to produce fifty different varieties of the sort of car the poor man buys and to tantalise him with differences in prices of a few' shillings is proof enough of better times. For these cars or most of them are made and sold in very large numbers.
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