A NEW MOTOR SPIRIT.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 June 1918, Page 4

A NEW MOTOR SPIRIT.

A fortnight ago opr attention was drawn, by Messrs Edlin and Eteveneaux, to a new motor spirit that is to take the place of benzine. We saw the tank of a car filled with The new spirit and we were taken all over the most precipitous roads in the borough and several a few miles beyond the borough boundaries, and it seemed to us that the old five seater Ford car was putting up a performance, fed on the new car food, that no other car could excel on any other food, or motor power. Since then we have seen a report in the Wellington "Evening Post" Of a trial run, made in a Buick five-seater -,ar, from Wanganui to Wellington. A representative of the "Post" was one of a company of five men who made the journey. The car left the Wanganui Post Office as the turret clock was strking 10 a.m. and it arrived at the Wellington Post Office at twenty-two minutes past two in the afternoon, thus completing the journey in four hours twenty-two minutes, it being necessary to change the gear but once, and that at the Paekakariki Hill. Five and a-quarter gallons "of spirit was used, an average of over twentyfour miles per gallon.-The average speed was nearly twenty-nine miles per hour, and at the end of the journey Mr. Watson-Munro, engineer for the New Zealand Fuel Economisers, Ltd., examined the engines and declared there were no faults to be found in that direction. As roads were far from being in good order, and as several mobs of sheep and cattle were encountered; this trial run was particularly successful. The "Post' 'says, by way of Indicating the speed with which "Bulldog" spirit can be manufactured, it is interesting to note that the spirit used on the trial run was coal-tar and shale, at four o 'clock the same morning. The stills were set going and by eight o'clock there was sufficient spirit to fill the tank and a considerable quantity in addition." We understand this new spirit is being sold at fourteen shillings per case, which is less than half the cost of benzine. If nothing unforeseen happens it should be a great boon to farmers generally, as it provides a reasonably priced power for shearing, milking and all other power-driven farm machinery; and if the materials from which it is made permit of an unlimited supply there would be little cause for increasing the present selling price, provided, of course, »it is kept free from trusts and combines. In any case it will help to reduce the strain on benzine stocks.