STEAM CARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 268, 2 February 1928, Page 16

STEAM CARS

ONCE DID 127 i M.P.H. BEATEN BY OPPOSITION Prior to the end of the 18th century numerous attempts were made to construct “land boats” —a kind of lowwheeled cart fitted with sails. But the advent of steam turned men’s thoughts in the direction of more manageable road craft. Newton was one of the first to try to construct a carriage propelled by a jet of steam kept active by means of a spirit lamp. Not a single experiment was successful, however, until Cugnot—a Frenchman —gave the lead in 1769 with his wonderful contraption which was able to travel at 2£ miles an hour with four adults. Journeys were, short in Cugnot’s day, because the boiler capacity was only sufficient to give a quarter of an hour’s running, writes E.T:B. in “The Motor.” But Cugnot'did not have the field to himself for very long. In 1784 William Murdock produced a steam car that really worked, but its chief drawback was that it usually caught fire when on the road. It was the forerunner of many other successful models. “Horseless Carriages” Steam cars had come to stay, however, clumsy although they were. In the early years of the 19th century there was a tremendous boom in horseless carriages. Ideas were very mixed in those days, and no one ever thought of designing a special body for the steam car. The old stage coach was accepted as the last word in carriage construction; so this was taken, in all its gaudy paint and with its Luge wheels, and fitted with an engine. The roads were rendered almost intolerable with flying cinders, while the passengers came in for their fair share of the nuisance, for they were smothered with soot and smoke. But for all that, those early steam cars did work,, and many of them were capable of reaching 20 miles an hour on a level road. Overpowering Opposition Had it not been for the shortsighted policy of the powers-that-be, the motor-car would have become an accomplished fact quite 50 years sooner than it did. There was every chance of the steam car becoming a formidable rival to the railway train during the first half of the 19th century, but this could not be allowed. The stage coach and the railway people agitated

to such good purpose that everythin, was done to force the steam cars or the road. Tolls were increased against this the general charge being £2 irate*.! of 3s for the horsed coach; and ionenlightened local authorities actual! caused trenches to be dug acroaa Ur roads used for regular steam bus wrvices. Finally, Parliament ordered that every self-propelled vehicle should have a man with a red flag walking 100 yards in front. This law was actually in existence until 1896, and ii was not until its repeal that the steam car came into its own. But the death warrant of the «*»aTP car had been signed before the repeal of the old law, because 20 years earlier propulsion by petrol instead of by steam had been discovered. For a decade, however, the steam car made remarkable strides, both in reliability and popularity, and for some years this type of vehicle held all record*. Speedy Pioneers In 1902 a Serpollet steam car attained a speed of 75 miles an hour at Nice, a record which was beaten efeii and again, until, in 1906, a Stanley steam car swept everything before it by attaining a speed of 127 J miles an hour on the Ormonde Beach sands. This was, however, somehting In the nature of a death spurt, as no further records stand to the credit of this type of engine, although there are several successful steam cars being manufactured in America to-day. There is still little doubt that, if the same skill in designing, the same elaborate research work, and the same energy had- been expended in the direction of improving the steam car as has been applied during the past 20 years to the petrol engine, a very different story would have to be told.