Marvels of Luxury and Mechanical Ingenuity.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 5, 1 March 1907, Page 163

Marvels of Luxury and Mechanical Ingenuity.

The motor show at Olympia, London, is exceedingly attractive as a display of up-to-date cars and appliances ; but would such a show not be more interesting to the general public were it to contain under one roof the swiftest, largest, handsomest, costliest, most curious, most useful, and most luxurious motors in the world ! The most luxurious pleasure cars are owned by monarchs and millionaires. The cars of our own Royal Family are the reverse of ostentatious, but they are the "last word " in finish, efficiency,, and workmanship. King Edward's motors have swing chairs and the latest electric accessories, and they each carry a compact " first aid " outfit. For

shooting, His Majesty has a specially constructed car with revolving seats and accommodation for guns. The Prince of Wales owns a " picnic " car with folding adjustable tables for luncheon or tea. The Kaiser's finest car cost £4000. It is furnished like a miniature drawing-room, with carpeted floor, and roof covered with ivory-coloured leather. It contains a handsome writing-table and four highbacked chairs, and is beautifully lighted by electricity. Queen Margherita, the Queen Mother of Italy, possesses some very handsome motors. The interiors are fitted with tables for six persons, armchairs, and folding-seats, and are lighted electrically. In her favourite car she has a silver image of the patron saint of motorists, St .Christopher. The image is surmounted by the royal arms, and has a gold border with the inscription, composed by

the queen herself, " St. Christopher, preserve us from the perils of the way, and protect us in the incidents of the journey."

CHOCOLATE KING S CAR. The French " Chocolate King," M. Menier, owns a wonderful motor-car, which is a small hotel on wheels. It is divided into two parts — " bed-sitting-room," with secret folding-beds, and a dressingroom and kitchen, with every possible accessory for toilet and cooking, and every imaginable requisite for pleasure touring. Mr. Pierpont Morgan's partner, Mr. Perkins, drives to business in the most luxurious car in America. The upholstery is of the finest morocco leather. There are seven seats round a table large enough for dinner or a game of cards. There is a couch at the front, and at the back a pantry with an ice-chest, hat-racks, cupboards, and a host of other accessories.

The world's largest motor-car is owned by a Cleveland "millionaire, Mr. Louis'TD. Schoenberg. It is 25 ft. long, and fitted up inside so that the occupants can live on board as though it were a yacht. Another of America's multi-millionaires, Mr. Fiske, journeys to town each day in a motor office, in which he can transact buiness en route, and it has a dressing-room attached, in which he can change into evening dress in time for dinner when he reaches his suburban home in the evening.

TWO GORGEOUS VEHICLES. The King of the Belgians spent on a motoiflat containing! *a sleeping-room, a dressing-room

that cost £800 in fittings alone, and a room for a valet. The late Marquis of Anglesey's gorgeous car, the Quo Vadis, cost £2500, had a Louis XV. ceiling, and silver plate and silver fitting wherever they could be introduced. Utilitarian motor vehicles are becoming more numerous and varied every day. Commercial travellers' cars, with accommodation for samples, etc., are now supplied for £150 to £200. A motor restaurant exists m London, and a motor ambulance was a feature of the Lord Mayor's Show the other day. Agricultural motors are increasingly used for threshing, hoisting, pumping, shearing, grinding, and so forth. Motor fire-engines are as yet m the trial stages. The London brigade's latest acquisition, " Motor Fire King No. 2," is proving very satisfactory. It travels thirty miles an hour on the level.

Armoured motor-cars are being largely introduced into the world's armies. The Russian government has just acquired seven cars, which are veritable fortresses on wheels. Each has bullet-proof sheathing and a machine-gun turret which works in any direction, firing 600 shots a minute. In our own army we have a bullet-proof steel first-aid motor, capable of carrymg its occupants in absolute safety through a hail of fire from 10,000 rifles.

FOR THE DESERT. Exceedingly interesting are the motors for polar and desert work. The former is expected to supersede dogs in Arctic exploration. It consists of a fiercely revolving, four-bladed fan, driven by a gasoline engine, and is attachable either to a motor-car or a sleigh. The wheels of desert-motors have very broad, flat tyres, with a flange in the centre, which throws up the sand on either side and makes a bed for the flat part of the wheel to run on. A queer-looking contrivance is the Canadian dummy-horse car. The dummy-horse is fixed to the car out of deference to the nerves of real horses. The horn is attached to the dummy's mouth, and at night the eyes are lighted up, a pair of brilliant green and red orbs glaring at passing vehicles The motor-car pawnshop made its inevitable appearance in New York recently, flaunting the sign of the three balls and carrying a cash supply of £10,000. Motor-skates and flying-boats should not be oveilooked m an enumeration of motor " freaks." M Constantmi, a Parisian, has travelled 30 miles an hour in motor-skates. Each skate is fitted with a motor of 1|- hp , air-cooled. The petrol tank, holding three-quarters of a litre of fuel, is supported by a girdle round the waist. The skater also carries the coil and accumulator and the levers for controlling the speed of the engines. Holding the control lever in the right, and having made the necessary arrangements to switch on the current and open the petrol supply, the skater pushes off| on one foot in the customary way The motor-boot, by the same inventor, is worked on identical principles. The boots are really diminutive motor-cars fitted to Wellington boots. Each boot has four wheels, 8 m in diameter, with solid tyres. M. Constantmi has travelled hundreds of miles in them.

The gist of what is xn everybody's mouth about the tendency to lighteness of construction, in defiance of common sense, has been summed up easily, thus by an expert : — One would naturally think makers of air cooled engines for a high compresson would have castings of a fair weight for the sake of safety, but my experience is that they don't. Probably this is accounted for by the constant craze for lightness. A light engine is made, it does not give enough power, or at least the h.p. of a reasonably heavy one, and up goes the compression. Result • A banging, knocking engine, that is a misery to drive and a source of constant tiouble to keep gastight. One sixteenth of an inch thick is not enough for a cylinder casting. If the piston stuck at any time from faulty lubrication the cylinder would bieak off at the foot, if it did not break before. Threesixteenths of an inch is not too thick for even a motor cycle engine.