CAR CONTROL

Shannon News, 5 August 1927, Page 4

CAR CONTROL

One of the minor points about car control arrangement concerns the "position of the gear shift lever. Side or central ? control is a question which effects -the driver in more or less degree, according to his particular idiosyncrasies. There are quite a number of the older brigade —the men who started their motor usage on the old Panhard type of vehicle —who will always plump for the right-hand control of the gears. They have become accustomed to the position and they have acquired the "sense" of the feel for the gear by the right hand. But many things have changed since those early days, arid to-day we have centralised and side control pretty evenly divided in the choice of the designer and manufacturer. Gear changing in the early days was something of a business. It required force as well as skill and ' feel.* To-day the practised driver can flick over the gear lever without trouble or strain, and a left-hand operation is as easy as a right-hand one. Probably what has made the central control so popular is the fact that cars could be built with it and require no