“NEVER AGAIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 82, 28 June 1927, Page 11

“NEVER AGAIN

TOURING NORTH IN WINTER SEASON At least two local motorists will not again repeat a mistake they made last week, when they tried to get through to Mareretu, a district somewhat north of Maungaturoto, by car. These are Messrs. S. Bremmer and G. Otway, of Drury, and they had a terrible time, eventually failing to reach their destination, and having the greatest difficulty in getting out of their troubles. At times their car was so deep in the mud that the wheels were not visible, and they had finally to remove their back mudguards, which were holding them in the mud. A strong pair of chains was broken to pieces. Describing their trip to THE SUN, they said: “On Wednesday morning we left Drury for a trip to Maungaturoto and back • in an Oldsmobile car. Leaving Drury at 11 a.m. we reached Helensville at 2 p.m. We stopped there to get benzine, etc., and were told we had not a possible chance of getting through as no cars had been through for a week, and the roads were very bad. The garage proprietor lent us a slasher and said it would be very useful to us. “Just after leaving Kaukapakapa we struck the clay roads, where we put on chains. At 6 p.m. that day we reached a township called Glorit, so that we took nearly four hours to go 20 miles.

“We must say the hospitality of the people we met was all that could be desired. We went into one house to ring Auckland, and they would not hear of our going further that night. In fact, they sa id we had to pass a bad flat about half a mile long, and that we would never get through.

“We had no encouragement from anyone we met. However we left next morning at 8.30 o’clock. The roads from this place for the next nine miles were good—compared with what, as we found, we were going to. “Then we came to the bad flat. In places the mud reached to the foot of the headlights. On several occasions the mud was so bad that the front of the car got buried, and the pull on the back wheels broke the chains. We reached Wellsford at 7 p.m. that day, a distance of about 25 miles, but on this stretch we were delayed for nearly three hours through skidding into a ditch.

“The next morning we removed the back mudguards, as they kept getting clogged with mud, and started for Maungaturoto, but after going about eight miles we turned it in and started for home, as the roads were absolutely impassable. “We left Wellsford at 2.30 p.m., reached Glorit at 6.30 p.m. On this occasion we nearly came to grief as over the worst piece we had to drive in the dark, and before we knew it we came to a bad wash-out with a 15ft. drop. One back wheel dropped into it, but the speed of the car took us over. “At 9 a.m. the next day we left Glorit for Helensville. Finding the chains only caused the wheels to choke, we removed them and completed the rest of the clay roads without them.” CALIFORNIA PRICE WAR SEVERE COMPETITION New Zealanders returned from San Francisco report that a price war is in operation there over the price of “gasoline.” It appears that it can be bought for as low as 20 cents a gallon. “Hostilities” were opened by the PanAmerican Company (which is controlled by Mr. E. L. Doherty) and were followed by the others, including the Richfield Oil Company. These people have issued a statement giving their reasons for the reduction as “a severely competitive situation,” and mention “the sacrifice involved in reducing the market price below economic levels.” PROGRESS IN CAR DESIGN THOUSAND TINY STEPS Progress in the design of cars may appear to falter, but actually it never stops. Year by year, in scores of drawing offices, hundreds of clever brains are steadily evolving new methods of production side by side with new details of design. No real improvement ever bursts on the world full-blown. A thousand tiny steps of testing, experiment and road experience go to the making of the perfect car that some day the public will drive and wonder why it took so long to evolve. Evolution applies to cars very much as it works in the world of nature. Progress is more by a process of elimination and replacement ip detail than by fundamental alteration in design. Cars still betray their origin froir. the old coaching days even on the most elaborate examples of modern design. This, obviously, must be true of the coachwork and not of the mechanism that propels it. There would seem to be still too wide a gap between the work of the engineers who design the chassis and the Qoachbuilders who make —or mar—the final result. Car's are still built as though they were to have two separate entities and were not interlinked at every stage of their joint evolution.