WOMEN DRIVERS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 February 1926, Page 4

WOMEN DRIVERS

EFFECT ON CAR. DESIGN. In discusing the tremendous increase in the number of women motorists, that is. women - owner-drivers, quite apart from women who motor, the technical papers one and all agree this will have a great effect on the- design and equipment of a ear. Generally speaking, up to this year manufacturers have concentrated on the technical qualities, but the sec-ahead firms are slowly, but none the less surely, beginning to keep pace with tho feminine element.

Considerably more attention is being given to the items which have a stronger appeal to us than the purely mechanical side. For one woman who has a taste for mechanics you will find twenty who haven’t. So long as they are able to drive their cars and use the engine control and brakes with intelligence, they are quite indifferent as to the internal arrangements. Of course, the modern car is a well-behaved piece of mechanism, ami seldom goes wrong unless snb'jectcd to the roughest tisage. But all women, mechanically inclined or otherwise, like elegance and coinfort in a. ear, and in consequence the manu-

facturers are now vicing with each other as to who can produce the most finished article in this respect. The fact of women taking so wholeheartedly to motoring lias been a great impetus to th* trade. Incidentally it means employment for thousands ol women who would otherwise he thrown on an already congested labour market. The best upholstery work is done by women, and skilled workers are highly paid. The dainty silk curtains and cushions which adorn the inside of some of the higher-priced ears are all the work of feminine hands. If women had been content to sit in mot*rs as they do in railway trains, lew. if any. of the elegant models seen to-day would have been manulactiired. But they weren’t, and in consequence a demand lias been created which means much grist to the mill of Inc manufacturer. Incidentally it ah' l means the keeping together of main a home which otherwise would have been broken up.