COMPLEX SIMPLICITY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7967, 19 February 1906, Page 7

COMPLEX SIMPLICITY.

There haa been much joking about motor talk; indeed, motor "sbop" is held by some to be almost as bad aa golf "shop." But there aeema to be reason to biliove that some nenplo who go in for motoring are just as loth (o understand the working of the "innards" of a motor car as their own interior arrangements. At least, this is the ■experience of a gentleman iu the English motor trade, who in answer to tbo question, "How much does ~ the publio really know of the technique of motor cars?" replies, "Precious little and, perhaps, tne a less the better." This was brought JL, homo to him, ho cays, by an incident in his. career as a salesman of electric cars. ' An old gentleman came in one day to see a car, and confessed at the outset that he bad not tho faintest notion how a car ran, nor why a retrol machine polluted the air, as it wenfc along. The salesman, full of enthusiasm and technical knowledge, and perfeotly convinced "of the superiority of the electric car on auoount ot its simplicity, directed a perfect torrent of explanation on the old gentleman. The prospective customer's interest soon began to weaken, and this, of coarse, was a signal for renewed vehemence on the part of the salesman, who weni over all the points again, explaining minutely the operation of every part of the machinery. "Then, Anally, I had exhausted every argument, and there, seemed » to be nothing left but to take his T order, and promise delivery at the earliest possible moment, the old gentleman took my breath away by remarking, 'And that's what you call simplicity, eh? Well, when you make a motor car that will gee when I say 'Gee,' and whoa when I say 'Whoa,' I'll come round and see you. "till that time, 1 think I'll keep to my old maie, and her name's not simplicity eitheri'" Hut this is not all. They met again, the old gentleman being encountered in the act of getting out of a motor car. He explained that the man who sold him the oar had begun where the unsuccessful salesman had left off. He had simply take a him for a ride, and when he (the old gentleman) saw that the car woald "gee" and "whoa" he bought it leaving the understanding and oare of the meobanism to a chaffeur. "And that man," says the teller of the tale, "represents to me the public of to-day."