GARAGE GOSSIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 722, 23 July 1929, Page 6

GARAGE GOSSIP

Seven countries manufacture cars, and 107 use them. “I've got a car all right,” a paintshop man told me yesterday, “but I keep a horse for pleasure.” It is stated that the number of cars stolen in London outnumbers motorcycles by four to one. The membership of the New Zealand Motor Trade Asociation at the beginning of this month was 1,428. The Velie Motor Corporation is to cease manufacturing motor-cars, and will go into the manufacture of airplanes. TRANSFER OF INSURANCE

Traffic accidents in Liverpool were more numerous last year than in previous years, but 75 per cent, of them, according to the chief constable, were due to the carelessness of pedestrians. With a capital of £500,000, a company has been formed in England to run sleeping motor-coacli service from Aberdeen to London, via Glasgow and Newcastle. Motorists in England are protesting against the regulation which prohibits the locking of closed car doors on recognised parking areas. The law requires that the car shall be left so that it can be moved by hand in the event of any emergency. The regulation has the full approval of car thieves and prowlers. THAT SATURATION BOGEY U.S. MOTOR CHIEF IS SCEPTICAL Continued growth of the automobile industry may be expected for many years to come, in the opinion of John N. Willys, president of the Willys-Overland Company and chairman of the Export Trade Committee of the American Automobile Chamber of Commerce. Numerous factors, he declared, have combined to make the much-discussed saturation point look like a vanishing point at present. Specifically, the Toledo manufacturer cited the discovery that used cars could be accepted as part payment on new cars; instalment selling; car-per-person ownership; and the recent swift expansion of sales in overseas countries. “It was fifteen years ago that the 'saturation point’ began to be regarded with interest and alarm,” said Mr. Willys. “Each year, at automobile show time, the question of saturation comes up for discussion. “Meanwhile, however, the market has continued to absorb more automobiles. The industry passed the 4,500,000 production mark in 1928, and has an excellent prospect of reaching 5,000,000 in 1929. “Whenever the mythical saturation point seems to be near, some new impetus arrives to drive it away.”