The Mistake of Motor-Car Racing.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 195, 22 August 1904, Page 2

The Mistake of MotorCar Racing.

The Saturday Review deprecates the Gordon Bennett race. "Do these motor orgies," it asks, ''serve any good purpose. To us they seem to bo ugly and unwise. They bring out the worse side of the motorist, the foolish craze for mad pace. Muny of the motors onterod for this wild contest are of 90 and even 100 horse-power, 'they are hideous and bad playthings, the sight of which will stir weak people to achieve record rms with their own motors to the discomfort if not to the damage of the public. "This is not the way tc develop the motor industry ; any more thorn bicycles geared to somo monntrous figure over a hundred develop the cycle industry. What is wanted, and will be called for more and more within the next few years', is the small motor to carry from two to four iieople, as free as possible from vibration and noise, at a price nt least twenty per cent, below the present. When this motor is on the market, a great impetus will be given to the trade. If the manufacturers will concentrate on this, they will advance their industry infinitely better, and in the end make money far more surely, than by giving so much time and attention to the grolosiquo machines prepared for racing and record*?. These races lower the indus>try and tend to make it hateful in the view of many peoplo who otherwise have no feeling against motors and motorists.

"Ono of tlie largest firms connected with the industry predicts, we 'believe, that the 'poor man's' motor is the motor of the near future, and that in a couple of years tho price will be well below a hundred pounds for a small and efficient douible-cylin-dered motor'of about six-horse power. But there is not much sign of this ; it is more likely to be ten years at tlio present rate."