MOTOR AND CYCLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1921, Page 10

MOTOR AND CYCLE.

NEWS AND NOTES. AMERICAN MOTOR GROWTH. Twenty-five years ago, there were in America only four automobiles. One of these was in a circus, while another was on exhibition as a mechanical freak. Today there are 8,000,000 automobiles in use in America. Of these, 850,000 are trucks. lowa and Nebraska have an automobile for every six people, so that on a given holiday, the whole population could go joy-riding. There is one car in the United States for 14 people. The rest of the world has one car for every 2830. These stupendous figures kindle the imagination. They are the manifests of a social and economic revolution. THE DRIVING FORCE, Little does the average car owner realise the tremendous forces unleashed when he starts the engine of his automobile. An English scientist recently made some interesting calculations in this connection. He found that a piston with a stroke of s|in at an engine speed of- 4000 revolutions a minute for six cylinders travels 72 miles an hour. During a 200-mile trip the piston, weighing just undei* a pound, goes up. and down in its cylinder .585,600 times. During such a run the radiator dissipates enough Each'spring moves up and down at least--400,000 times during a 200-mile jaunt over average improved roads. Consider the breaking mechanism: When a car which, with weighs 400(1 pounds is brought to a stop from 50 miles an hour, the energy dissipated would lift the largest type of steam locomotive in existence several inches in the air. The generator during a fourhour run of average speed will put five ampers into the battery at six volts—energy enough to illuminate a transAtlantic liner for a full minute