DIESEL TRUCK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 400, 8 December 1932, Page 6

DIESEL TRUCK

NEW CROSSLEY ENGINE HAS REYOLUTIONARY DESIGN SHOWN AT ROTORUA For many years the high price of motor spirits has been one of the main handicaps to the cost of transport and engineers have been conducting research work throughout tho world in steam, petrol and heavy oil products to endeavour to find some way of cheapening the running expenses of heavy work. The Diesel engine which has been adapted to marine and stationary work has now been adapted to road transport. At one period it was feared that tbe heavy weight formerly used in these engines would be a definite bar to their use in lorries and trucks but the Crossley works has apparently solved the problem if a Diasel-engined truck which is being exfiibited in Rotorua by Messrs. J. J. Niven and Co., is any criterion. Tbe truck is in cliarge of Mr. Perry and his son Don who from pre-war days have handled Crossley cars in New Zealand. The truek which attracted a great deal of interest and speculation is an extremely solidly-built job with seviral revolutionary features to persons who are used to the ordinary internal combustion engine- as seen operating in the average car. There are six cylinders in the Crossley Diesel, no carburettor, no sparlc plugs and no benzine, the erude oil, costing 5id per gallon, being fed into the cylinder tubes and ignited under high compressidn. According to figures in the ' possession of the representatives the truck is run at something slightly under the cost per mile of the average motor-cycle and is estimated at about l-3d per mile. The average saving in fuel and running costs over 50,000 miles is stated to be £600 compared with the usual petrol-driven lorry. This truck is the first of its kind n New Zealand and is rather bigger than usual, but is to be followed by lighter models suitable for the differmt classes of roads eneountered. In Britain alone, 65 of these machines ure in use by the Manchester City Council and a further 13 corporations are using* them in various types. Further details of this revolutionary design will be published at a later date.