UP GRADE OF 1 IN 2½

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 668, 21 May 1929, Page 14

UP GRADE OF 1 IN 2½

BRITISH WAR OFFICE TRIALS “It is not,” says “The Motor” (.London), “an everyday experience to see British small cars climbing gradients i of 1 in 21 with atrocious road (if this term is admissible) surfaces and rushing banks of 1 in 1.” The cars in Question were Jowetts, modified in detail to conform with army requirements, but, nevertheless, substantially the same as the norm'al production models. The engine is a horizontally opposed twin-cylinder rated at 7.04 h.p., with a capacity of only 4)07 c.c. The first item on the programme u*as a trial by the works staff of the army cars up a gradient (of about 1 in 4£) with an atrocious surface. Ruts Biu. deep were taken at an estimated speed of 10 miles an hour to 12 miles an hour, the cars bouncing a foot or more in the air; but nothing untoward happened and no damage appeared to have been done by the severe bumping. Next came a climb up a steep, rocky and greasy slope, aptly termed Quarry Hill. A few of the cars stuck in the soft ground, but such failures were entirely due to wheel-spin and not engine power. With chains the ascent would have been easy.

The last test was by far the most impressive, for a really terrible course had been constructed out of mounds of rubbish and heaps of stones at the rear of the Jowett works, at Idle, near Bradford. The cars rushed up banks which had gradients of 1 in 2 o>r thereabouts, and jumped over ravines a foot wide and a foot deep. A run in the reverse direction showed that the four-wheel-braking systems were efficient.

The grand finale came when ore of tljc cars was .rushed up a bank about 4ft. high and sloped at an angle approaching 45 degrees. This bank looked as though it would be quite impossible for any car. but the manner in which the Jowett (ably piloted, by the way) took the terrific jolt at the foot of the slope was most convincing.