CHEAP MOTOR CARS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 148, 11 November 1912, Page 4

CHEAP MOTOR CARS.

At last the motor car manufacturers in Great Britain are awaking to the fact that the cheap and efficient cars made in America are becoming a serious menace to the trade at Home. The enormous number of these cars sold in Great Britain is almost incredible, two American Arms alone selling between seven and eight thousand a year. In the building of high-priced cars, English manufacturers have secured the whole of the lAarket in cheaper cars, the protection of their home industry enabling them to sell in Britam at a price with which the unprotected English builder cannot compete. The demand for cheap, light cars is growing enormously, and if America is not to secure the whole trade, action must be taken at once. In another year or tivo it will be too late. It is proposed, therefore, that the leading manufacturers should form a cornpan}', with a capital of half-a-million, to put out five thousand cars the first year, ten. thousand the second, and twenty thousand the third year. The vital point, of course, turns on the type of car which would be built, and the idea was to secure, in the shape of a technical consulting committee, some of the leading brains in the English automobile industry, who could consider, and discuss, and settle every detail in connection with the construction of the car, both in regard to type, form of manufacture, and cost of production, and .also advise on the necessary programme to be entered into with regard to selling and exploitation. These gentlemen have had vast experience of the English motor industry, and know the requirements of the colonies, and their judgment could be safely relied on as being sound and good commercially. The car in mind would be sold to the public complete, fully equipped, and readv for the road for the sum of £2OO. "it would necessarily not have the many splendid refinements which the higher-grade British cars possess, but it would be a sound, strong, workmanlike car, capable of wearing well, and giving satisfaction in the ordinary work it would be subjected to, not only in England, but in the various colonies and other places abroad. The sum of £2OO lias been fixed because this is a figure which many thousands of people could afford to pay for a really sound car, and if a large number of cars are produced on the lines outlined the cost of production would be minimised sufficiently to enable excellent material and workamnship to be employed. After allowing for proper commission, advertising expenses, exploitation, and general distribution charges, such a car could be sold and show a net profit to the company of—at a very low estimate —the sum of £lO per car, and on the output of 5000 cars this would mean a net profit of .-€50,000, which, on a working capital of £300,000, would be 10|/ 2 per cent. The output being increased to 10,000 ears would mean a much larger profit per car, and the return for the money invested would be of a very handsome description. Tne figures mentioned are not guesswork, but are based on the knowledge of the leading companies in America which are catering for the

popular want. It is to be hoped that the scheme will be brought to a successful issue, even though it be late in the day, for the promoters have hit upon one of the great blemished in British enterprise. No one wants to spend £SOO or £IOOO on a car to last 20 years, but if a useful one can be obtained for less than half those figures, there will undoubtedly be a great field for usefulness.