U.S.—FRANCE LINK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 550, 31 December 1928, Page 6

U.S.—FRANCE LINK

AMILCAR-DURANT AGREEMENT Announcement has been made in Paris of a union between the Amilcar Company and W. C. Durant, of the Durant Motor Corporation. The companies will remain separate, but will help each other in marketing and production. The Amilcar organisation will market Durant products in France, while the Durant plant will manufacture some parts for the Amilcar, and will foster the sale of the French car in the United States. The new Durant showrooms in the Champs Elysees, Pans, have the biggest frontage of an:-- motor house on that avenue:, which is the hub of the French motor world, and has probably the most expensive rentals in Paris. WILL REMAIN BRITISH CROSSLEY RUMOUR DENIED Mr. A. W. nibble, aeneral manager. Crossiey Motors, .Ltd., Manchester, England, wy i s: “A letter wnicli was published in the correspondence columns of a wellknown. British motoring journal appears to have given rise to an absolutely unfounded rumour that Crossiey Motors, Ltd., are purchasing American engines for use in Crossiey cars. If it had not been for the fact that during the recent Olympia Show a number of people, including overseas buyers, mentioned it to members of the Crossley staff, the rumour would have been considered too ridiculous even to have been contradicted; but since then one or two Crossiey owners and prospective owners have written to the company on the subject, and it is felt that an emphatic denial is now necessary. “Crossiey cars are British throughout. They are manufactured in the Crossiey works at Manchester, England. by British about-, and there is no thought of utilising any foreign components. There has never been nv suggestion that this might be done, and the Crossiey wn* continue to be British throughout, as it always has been.

WHY “LEFT’? THE RULE OF THE ROAD Though vehicular traffic in most countries keeps to the right of the road, in all parts of the British Empire, except Canada, it keeps to the left. Established by custom and use, left side traffic ante-dates the right side idea by hundreds of years. It is a matter of taste, but it is also intriguing to reflect on why the left side was chosen in the first place. Probable reason is that the right is the fighting arm, and the custom arose when armoured knights were the bulk of traffic. They "were always ready for fight if the possible enemy was on their right-hand side, but could not effectively use lance, mace or sword if the opponent was on the left. Self-protection and a free fighting arm seem the logical reasons why the modern policeman chants “Keep to the left.”

50 YEARS HENCE SIR H. AUSTIN’S PROPHECY Now to the ranks of seers and prophets has been added Sir Herbert Austin, who recently ventured to predict what motoring- may be like 50 years hence. He anticipates that towns and cities will grow larger and larger. People will continue to congregate in confined areas, and it will be no pleasure to motor in cities and towns, and even on many highways. All this, he expects, will create a desire aijiong people to stay more within their homes, and there will be more communal travelling by fast and silent running electric vehicles. Journeys to foreign countries by air will be of everyday occurrence, and, as probably we shall have evolved a universal language, there will be a greater interchange of visitors. There is not, in that forecast, a very glowing future for cars. But we shall have traded our current models "in before 1978, so there is no reason to be depressed.

Pursuing its extension programme, the Graham-Paige Co. is constructing a complete engineering laboratory and a car test building, surrounded by a concrete test track, at its Warren Avenue plant, Detroit. These extensions will add 84,000 square feet to floor space. The cost of the buildings without equipment, will be £40,000.