HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1930.
MOTOR NOTES
PETROL AT PENNY
A GALLON.
"GAS WAR" ON PACIFIC
COAST..
In Seattle a filling station was recently giving five gallons of gasci- lene free to every motorist who changed oil. In Fresno a dealer retailed gas at two cents a gallon, plus the three-cent State tax. In San Francisco prices ranged from seven to fourteen cents, including the tax, and in Los Angeles from eight and one-half to twelve and one-half cents.
.1
These prices were results of the most disastrous gas war in Paci fic const history price-cutting orgy which, according to the Santa Barbara Times, carried the menace of industrial panic. Such cut- throat competition is not business'
in any justifiable sense, declares the San Diego Union, adding: "There is a distinction between business and piracy,”
"Preventing Further "Wars."
While a truce has been enforced by the refusal of the four major oil companies-Standard of California, Shell, Union, and Richfield-to sell gasolene to price-cutting dealera, the problem of preventing the re- currence of such wars Feniains, "local authorities tell us.
over-
the
CARS THAT WILL NOT WEAR OUT.
MANUFACTURERS' AIM.
Unscratchable Stoel.
SOFT TYRES FOR THE SAHARA.
SOLVING TRANSPORT
-PROBLEM" OVERSEAS.
A special steel bas also been
The British Empire with its perfected which has such a hard millions of acres of undeveloped and smooth surface that it is im-country offers immense scope to our possible to scratch it, even with a leaineers, says - The Commercial file. An experimental rankshaft was made of it and fitted to a Motor, in respect of the construe British car, which was run for tion and supply of vehicles which 10,000 miles under the worst poss- SECRET ALUMINIUM ALLOY.ible conditions The engine was
can be utilized in those places kept short of oil until a connecting where roads are either inferior or rod seized solid to the crankshart.non-existent. In fact, the overseas aftan it was free it was impossible, trade carried on in such means for using the most delicate measuring instruments, to detect any sign of transport is proving one of the wear.
bright spots of the commercial- vehicle industry, many hundreds of multi-wheeled machines having al- ready been supplied.
A car that will never wear out
is the object of important experi- ments now being undertaken by metallurgists on behalf of British motor manufacturers. Some of the new features, it is understood, may even be embodied in a few of the 1931 models which will be shown at the Motor Show in October.
**As a result of British car makers demands," said a pro mipcht automobile engineer, a new secret aluminium alloy has been invented "which is lighter even than pure aluminium, yet is nearly as strong as steel. Its composition is a closely guarded secret, but it is known to have valuable powers of recovery from fatigue. Manu- facturers will be able to use it for parts for which steel has previously been the only possible metal, thus lightening the load and reducing wear on the bearings.
(Continued on next Column.).
the street," explains the San Fran. cisco Chronicle.
"He begins shading prices on the sly to his regular customers.
"How long peace may last is problematical," remarks the Lor The secret is soon know, the station across the street retaliates, Angeles Exprés, which seet production as the cause of the one down the street cuts in, trouble, and goes on to say:—
and the war spreads like a prairie "It is a matter in which there. The refiners have to get in Government can and should lend a hand. The independent oil pro ducer is in competition not only with the great corporations that dominate the industry, but with foreign oil.
The Government should give the beredt of a protective tariff.
It seems hardly fair to ask the small, independent American pro- ducer to shut off, the flow of his wefl when at the same time a steady flood of oil pours into the country from Mexico and chewhere. duty free."
free
for self-protection...
The result is chaos.
dustry is almost torn up by the roots, and everyone loses money."
"British motor manufacturers aro nise adopting the very latest devices for Enishing metal parts, and one firm uses diamonds to put diamond-turned piston is always the final polish on the pistons A dead accurata and is better able
to resist the effects of maltreatment when new.
"A novel system of polishing the passages along which the gases flow from the carburettor has been found to increase the speed of a "ear by three miles an hour. A large num- ber of steel balls are placed inside the induction manifold, which is rapidly revolved for eight hours, and at the end of that period there is created in the interior a highly polished hard surface.
"The ultimate aim of British manufacturers is to make roller and ball bearings that will never require renewing, and with the general use of stainless steel and chronium plating a trouble-free car may be evolved that will only re- quire adjustment and very occa... sional decarbonising."
A NEW £100) CAR.
TO BE ON VIEW AT OLYMPIA.
After a year's life as a three- drive car made by the B.S.A.; of The in-wheeler, an 3 h.p. front-wheel
been changed into a four-wheeler Birmingham, is reported to have
four-seater car
The reason it is so hard to pre vent these gasoleng price-wars, the same paper adds, "is in the anti- trust laws and the uncertainty about what they will permit and what they will not." To quote far ther:
An orderly marketing of the gasolete product is required, nat only for the industry, but for the benefit of the public. Yet it is plain there can be no orderly mar keting of gasolene without agree. ments
Nothing definite, it is stated, has been decided yet as regards its price, but it is expected to appear in the Olympias Show in October as virtually a £100 car, jam 19
Despite the efforts which baro been made to improve the track type of vehicle, it is almost certain to be more expensive in capital cost and upkeep than the type utilizing wheels, and it is cow
becoming questionable whether the track be essential except, perhaps, for use particularly soft and marshy
land.
Importance of Tyres." Some of our best-informed mili- tary aathorities believe that the wholo question of conquering the difficulties of crosscountry work, such as is represented by the Sahara, Egypt, Syria and other districts having similar characteris- tics, is almost entirely a matter of tyres.
Given sufficient torque at the driving wheels and most cehicles have this nowadays these terrains can be negotiated fairly.
at a sufficiently low pressure be asily if tyres designed to operate
available.
Experiments which have recently been carried out seem to show that tyre deflection is the most important factor. It is considered that des flection is much more important than pressure per square inch, and The machine, in its original ex- the ability of motor vehicles, besiy periments two years ago, was a or light, to travel effectively and four-wheeler, but on its first public economically across trackless un- appearance at the Motor-cycle Show developed areas is almost entirely last year it was a three-wheeler. dependent upon the development of With its twin-cylinder, air-cooled tyres capable of coping satisfac- How "Cutting Starts.
pennengine, it was a satisfactory pro- torily with the big deflections men- "A gasolene war commonly starts
But how to frame an agree duction, steady, well-sprung, and toned. A vehicle will march on somewhere with a single individuatment in which some judge will not with a good turn of speed. As a ite tyres like the army marches on or k t' four-wheeler it should be better its stomach, and, in the words of a gas-station owner eager to take be able to find an i
not dotted or crossed in exact no- the business away from one across.
A Coventry Arm also intend to a military expert, what is required -cordance with the shadowy orovi introduce an 8 h.p. water cooled to conquer the world is a soft tyre (Continued on next Column.) sions of the anti-trust laws?"
£100 ear.
and a hard stomach,
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