ON TWO WHEELS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 710, 9 July 1929, Page 6

ON TWO WHEELS

NEWS AND NOTES SUNBEAMS MAKE RECORDS Records galore were smashed ?n the . Senior Tourist Trophy race this year, i when Charlie Dodson, for the second j time.in succession, piloted a Sunbeam j to victory'. He averaged 72.05 m.p.h. for the 2641 j miles, and some idea of this feat is ] given by the fact that in the 22 years ! of tourist trophy racing, not even ; 79 m.p.h. has ever been averaged for a complete race on the Isle of Man. Dodson also broke the record lap standing to the credit of Hunt by aver- : aging 73 m.p.h. Alex Bennett, on a Sunbeam, was second, and the Sunbeam team, of which Arthur Simcock, the Australian, j was a member, won the team’s prize, j Two records, first two places, and ; the teams’ prize in the world’s most j important race —the Sunbeam certainly lived up to its reputation as a j road racer. SECOND HAND VALUES * Used motor-cycles differ widely in price, even similar models being ticketed with up to 50 per cent, variations. This is easily explained, however, by the fact that a machine carefully handled, and given little work over a period of 12 months, could easily be worth two-thirds of its listed new price, while one that has been badly treated may only be worth about one-third of its original cost. How then, it is reasonable to ask, can a person determine whether he is obtaining fair and equitable treatment when he is purchasing a used motor cycle? In the event of ,a buyer having no mechanical knowledge, he must rely on the standing of the firm with whom he is doing business to ensure getting full value for money, and, of course, exercise common sense in effecting a selection so as to obtain a suitable type. They Usually Know Motor-cycle buyers, in the main, j however, appear to he well equipped with the mental characteristics necessary to drive a bargain, and to appreciate a reasonable proposition when It is put before them, TYRES NOW COST LESS AND GIVE BETTER SERVICE “Sometimes I wonder,” Mr. F. Pidgeon, of the firm of E. W. Pidgeon and Company, Ltd., distributors of Goodrich rubber products, said recently, “if the motoring public realises to the fullest extent how all the automotive forces are, year by year, raiding the standards of quality aud, at the same time, constantly reducing the price levels. We are distributing Goodrich tyres of the highest quality they have ever been and at the lowest prices. [ “Recently I learned from the Good- j rich Company that the average life j of an automobile, in their tyre-testing j service, was about 50,000 miles ten i years ago. Now tbeir test cars run 100,000 miles and some of them even more than that. During the past ten i years Goodrich has worn out almost i 200 cars in testing tyres, so you can 1 easily see that they know what’s in a i car through millions of miles of run- 1 ning. Tyres, ten years ago, didn’t i give near the mileage they do now and, like cars, they cost more ten years ago. “We sometimes talk about the bad roads we had to travel over ten years ago and how hard they were on tyres. Now we have hundreds of miles of fast highways that invite speed; and nothing takes it out of a tyre like speed. “And so insistent has the demand been for Goodrich products in Auckland as well as other parts of the Dominion that we have now taken over the entire building of which up till recently we were occupying a portion at 305-309 Queen Street. “Thus as a distributing organisation we are now equipped to give tyre dealers and garages absolutely up-to-tbe-miuute service. This in turn means even better service to the motorists. Our enlarged premises can now carry stocks of everything that is made of rubber—from druggists’ rubberware, bathing caps, to tyres for ten-ton trucks.”