The Bad Old Days

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 650, 30 April 1929, Page 17

The Bad Old Days

Cars of 30 Years Ago Would Try Any Patience To-day tlie motorist steps into his ! car, turns on the ignition, and is com- j tortably and confidently on his jour- i ney. Twenty years ago this same motor- j ist, perhaps, used a kettle full of nut I water to prime his machine, pouring | some of the water into the radiator and some of it over the carburettor. ! Ihen he would bend over and crank ! the car. If he was adroit at this I operation, he would escape a broken i arm. There were the headlights. that | bad to be filled with oil in the really I early days. A little later, carbide lights were introduced. With this ! method, the. motorist found it necessary to see that the tank was supplied with water and carbide. Riding over a rough road, and there were certainly plenty of them, the carbide lights would suddenly flare up like Vesuvius, and then as quickly lade away. Following the carbides came the acetylene pressure tank, which was quite an improvement, it will be remembered that all of these lamps had to be lighted with a match. There were no garages along the roadways 20 years ago, and few passers-by to render help, so in case of a, punctured tyre the motorist would begin work on changing the offending bolted-on, lug, or clincher type fabric tyre. Inflating the tire was done by hand pump. There was no such thing as carrying an inflated spare tyre in the early days. And changing a flat tyre then often meant half -a day’s work, a pair of badly-skinned hands, and anything but a sweet disposition. Shock absorbers were unheard of in the early days. This did not make motoring over the bumpy roads any better. Windshield wipers were another unknown appliance, but they were not needed in the winter time, anyway, because everybody jacked-up their cars up in the garages and kept them there because road conditions made it impossible to use them. While there w’as no such thing as a spark plug 30 odd years ago, in the days of sprockets and scepticism, the accepted means of firing the fuel mixture was a fearful contrivance known as a hot tube. Equipped with a blow* torch, the motorist would proceed to heat up the tube. If he could not get the tube hot enough, the engine remained dead. If the tube became overheated—bang, backfire, bandages. Under such handicaps laboured the intrepid motorist before lie even put on his gloves and goggles to go forth on his perilous journey. , When it looked as though that hardy band of pioneer motorists was destined for extinction, the fiendish hot tube was discarded in favour of spark plugs. The first spark plugs were nothing to enthuse about. They were bought by the peck and thrown out by the bushel. Blit, in the intervening years of motor-car progress, spark plugs, like other component parts of the motor-car, have been gradually developed until they are as nearly perfect as it is possible to make them. i Cars are being driven longer to- ! day because of engineering develop- I ment and better driving conditions, and because of the protective devices on the car, such as oil filters, air cleaners, crankcase ventilation, petrol | strainers, balloon tyres, shock absorbers, lacquers, and paints, instrument board indicators, etc. Again, another factor in the long life and economic operation to to-day’s motorcar is the owners knowledge of the importance of keeping the car ser- | viced regularly.