,
THE AUTOCAR B Journal publisbeb in tbe interests of tbe mecbanicall~ propelleb roal > carriage,
EDITED BY H. WALTER STANER.
o . 7oi. VoL. XXII.l
SATURDAY, APRIL 3RD, rgog .
[PRICE 3D.
The Autocar.
(Publi shed Weekly.)
Registered as a Newspaper for transmission in the United Kingdom. Entered as second-clas5 matter in the New York (N.Y.) Post Office.
Three Editions every Friday.
1'he THREEPENNY EDITION, printed on Art Paper. The PENNY EDITION, printed upon thinner paper. 1'he FOREIGN EDITION, price 3d., printed on specially light bank paper for transmission abroad.
Editorial Office :
COVENTRY.
Publishing Offices :
20, TUDOR STREET, LONDON, E.C., England.
CONTENTS.
P A.GE 455 -456
NOTES A I R COOLING
456 457
USEFUL HINTS AND TIPS (ILLUSTRATED) THE I2 H . P. ADLER (ILLUSTRATED) ON THE TRACK. Bv H. C. LAFONE 'THE FINAL STAGES OF THE DAIMLER ENGINE TEST TH E AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION Dl~NER
. . .i58 -460
AERONAUTICS. BY THE MARQUIS DE MOUZILLY ST. MARS ( lLLUS.) THE JANNEY HYDRAULIC GEAR FOR AUTOCARS (ILLUSTRATED) EVENTS OF T H E WEEK ( ILLUSTRATIONS} THE NICE WEEK (ILLU2TRATED)-\NHERE T H E FLYIN G IS DONE,. MOTOR UNION NOTES .• THE UPKEEP OF AN 1 8 - 24 H.P. AUSTIN ( I LLUSTRATED) AN EN-TOUf - CAS COAT {lLLUSTRATED}-\ • V ARNING MOTORISTS OF
46 1 462 -463
464 465-466 467-468
469
470 47 1 472-473
TRAPS THE BOWDEN CONTROLLED AIR VALVE ( lLLUSTRATED)- TH E
473
~EW LEE-TRIGWELL BAND-THE MAGISTERIAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE SPEED I NDICATOR CORRESPONDENCE ( I LLUSTRATED) FRENCH R OADS AND R OAD M AKING ( ILL USTRATED) THE LAW AS TO OVERTAKING TRAFFIC
EW ZEALAND RELIABILITY TRIAL AWARDS FLASHES (ILLUSTRATED) .• CLUB D OI NGS AN IGNITION INDICATOR (ILLUSTRATED , SOME QUERIES AND REPLIES • .
474 479-483 484-486
486 487 488 -489
490 49 1
492
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British Isles-Howe Edition, 16s. ; penny (thin µ aper) edition, 6s. 6d.
Abroad (thin paper edition), 22s. 8d . per annum. Index to Adve rt isements appears an page 34 .
1 Noles. The Future orlPetrol Prices With petrol in London at 1s. 8d . per two-gallon tin, and th e knowledge of the fact that the world's production of crude oil is showing enormous increases, one is justified in asking the question: "What may we expect in the future? '' Is motor spirit to continue to reduce in price, or is the present move an artificial one, unjustified by circumstances, and created onl y to serve certain ends in view?
The trade of petrol importation and distribution has undergone quite a number of changes during recent years, but none more drastic than that change which is now p roceeding almost unconsciously- the substitu tion of a heavier motor spirit for that employed five , • ea rs ago.
The decline of the high-class oil producing regions in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the coming to the front of the prolific fields in the far East-Sumatra and Borneo-have done much to bring aLout the change, while popular prejudice against heavy gravity spirit has been overcome, thanks to the strong opinions held by eminent oil experts, and the convincing results of actual practical experiments. During the past three years we may take it that our petrol has in creased in gravity from .690 to upwards of .720, and had the motorist not been told of the change he would certainly not have noticed it, so efficient is heavy spirit when once the carburetter adjustments have been made.
But the advent of th e heavier spirit has been a great boon to the motorist. Had he still insiste d upon a light gravity article, he would most assuredly have been paying something like 2s. 8d . per two-gallon -tin in London to-day, and quite probably the price would have been considerably in excess even of that figure , since it would have been next to impossible to meet the demand by the supply. Now, however, new fi elds have been opened up which were formerly debarred from se:iding their motor spirit to this country. For instance, what would have been the use of our having a . 7 40 Roumanian spirit placed on the market five yea rs ago? Yet to-day Roumanian spirit is being imported into thi s country in ever increasing quantities and finds a ready sale, for it has been proved that the efficiency of a motor spirit does not depend upon its gravity alone. Then from Russia, Mexico, and other countries England to-day is importing large q uantities of petrol , and as tr·m goes on there is every reason to be lieve the countrie of origin wi ll continue to add t o their number.
No Dearth of Petrol. The dearth of petrol. which we heard such a lot about a few ve :1. rs ago, never seriously existed, but a t the present time it is quite out of the question.
Even on the English market we see convincing signs of the increase in the number of producing countries . Only a very few years ago the distribution of petroleum spirit in the United K ingdom was centred in the hands of two concems--the distributers of Pratt's spirit (th e Anglo-American Oil Company) and th e distributers of Shell spirit (the British Petrole um Co., Ltd. , as the concern is now called), but to-day several more distri buters have come into the field. each with a spirit prod uced in a different country. W,, have the P etroles de Grosnyi, which imports the spiri t known as P.G.R. This is a product from the Grosny oilfields in Russia, and the supply is practically unlimited. And then there is the H omelight Oil Co . . Ltd .. which is the marketing organisation of Benvis . a spirit from Roumania imported by Motor Fuel, Ltd .. while the latest spirit to come into this country i~ known as Mex and imported by the Bowring P etroleum Co., Ltd . As its name suggests, this motor spirit is from th e recently opened up fields of Mexico, where the great London contracting firm of Messrs. Pearson and Son s, Ltd., the head of which is Sir Weetman
