2
MOTORING
SUPPLEMENT
OF
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
SATURDAY, 3rd MAY, 1930.
Being The Official Organ of
THE HONGKONG AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION.
HONGKONG
MOTOR ACCESSORY COMPANY
apoctalisaa
in all kinds of
ACCESSORIES
sed
SPARE PARTS
Electric horns. Body polish Brakellning Hand jacks Lamp bulbs
Foot pumps Tire patches. Wrenches
o.
.. &c, &c..
* GORMAN"
and
"LUCAS" storage batteries
suitable for all antorcars, cycler and rains,
ALL AT ATTRACTIVE PRICES Dall and inspect, Bast of Canton Bldg. Tel, C. 577.
SERVICE
-REAL SERVICE!
Latest Machinery Expert Mechanics European Supervision
HAY WE SERVICE
YOUR CAR?
NO JOB TOO SMALL NO PROBLEM TOO INTRICATE,
MAIN SERVICE STATION
WANGHAI
10. CROSS LANE C.3193
K.1624
KOWLOON CAMERON RD.
THE PEAK PEAK GARAGE
P.208
IN CASE OF
EMERGENCY
C. 3193
J
Lane, Crawford, Ltd.
MODERN MOTOR SERVICE.
SUS'S A GREAT CAR UNDER THE HOOD BUT WHO WOULD FNOW IT, BY HER LOOKS? GIVE HER A COAT OF
Effecto FINISHES
AUTO
CURRENT
COMMENT
City Parking.
S
The demand for parking space for private cars in the city becomea greater almost every month, and yet one of the most valuable spaces is wasted by permitting vehicles to park parallel to the kerb. We re- fer to that wide thoroughfare from Des Voeux Road to Connaught Road, opposite Queen's Pier.. Some months ago, we suggested that bet- ter use could be made of the space by allowing cars to park at an angle, facing outwards from the kerb. No action was taken, and a few weeks afterwards. well- known local motorist offered to place his car in the position we suggested in order that a photo be taken in order to give greater] emphasis to the suggestion. A picture was duly reproduced in this aupplement, and it was clearly de- monstrated that ample traffic space would be left in the centre of the road for passing traffic. What objec- tion there can be we cannot imagine, and many motorists have spoken to us in favour of the suggestion be ing carried out. The paucity of suitable parking space is occasional- ly reflected in the cases where local motorists are charged for leaving cars in prohibited positions, and this fact alone, should influence the authorities in making every effort to increase parking space..
Hawkers' Trucks.
It is certainly in the interests of motorists that the Police au- thorities should prohibit the use of ice-cream and other small vehicles used by hawkers, for it is easy to imagine what annoyance and obstruction would be caused were such vehicles permitted to use the streets. The excuse that they are liable to cause damage to the roads does, however, sound rather flimsy, because when com- pared with the heavy coolie-drawn trucks, with iron shod wheels, carrying many tons weight, the damage caused by the light type of hawker's truck, must be negli gible. The most sensible argu- ment against the employment of al manner of small vehicles is their interference with normal trafic, and we are glad to note the decision to ban them. The Cape Record.
The recent flight to the Cape and back to England, by the Bris-; tol engined Fokker monoplane "Spider" piloted by Capt. Bar-3 nard and carrying the Duchess of Bedford, gave further demonstra- tion of the practical means of transportation provided by air- planes. The Asiatic Petroleum Company (S. China) received an- other cable during the week an-1 nouncing the arrival of the ma- chine at Croydon on the 30th, inst., thus completing 18,800 miles Lon- don-Capetown flight in twenty days. The following records were established in the course of the flight: London-Capetown, 9% days; Cape-Cairo, 5% days: longest non-stop flight ever made, South Africa, Bulawayo-Capetown, 1.250 miles; London Capetown
London, 20 days.
It is interesting to note that Shell aviation spirit and Golden Shell lubricating oil were used ex clusiveley for the flight.
Bad Stopping Place.
The bus stopping place along the Queen's Road just by the Wan- chai Market is most inconveniently- placed, and the thoroughfare would (be made much safer were it moved some twenty yards or so towards ALL COLOURS KEPT INĮSTOCK | the "island" on which stands the English-American Navel Memorial. AS WELL AS THE NEW
We suggest that the narrowest paint of a bottle neck is not the place to
FORD SHADES.
Arabian Sand, Dawn Grey. Niagara Blue and Gun Metal Blue.
allow such large vehicles as bus to stop, and seeing that by moying the point a few yards, no obstruction would be caused to other traffic $.5 nt pre-
THE WONDERFUL
Musings Awheel 1930 HARLEY"
TEACĪJA KASK ANAL
Idle Thoughts upon Motoring Matters of the Moment.
Models of Rectitude.
We are all of us much better-- and infinitely more genteel-motor drivers when we are at home than when we are on the road-although, of course, even there
we behave much better than other people. our chairs we cannot Indeed, in possibly imagine ourselves doing anything wrong or frightening any. body else by our actions, we keep in to the left all the time, we rever cut in, when we do catch up and pass another car our accelera- tion is simply Schneiderish, we always stop where we are told to stop, we always smile at every policeman (and he smiles back),
brakes
perfection although we never have occasion to use them and altogether we can not imagine (in our armchairs) what on earth all the never-ending fuss, of which the daily papers are so full in the dead season, is about at all, at any rate as far as it Motors especially our own particular brand-are very near to perfection and all our world on wheels you as merry 19 a marriage bell.
our
concerns us.
are
little
When the Dreamer Wakes, Then we wake up, get out of our chairs and go to bed. Now it is an odd thing that nobody ever has the nightmares except between sheets, exactly the sort of place be for that one would think to more conducive to placid slumber than when folded up in a chair. But so it is; and if one happens to be the driver of a dainty small car they always seem to be one shape (so much so that future generations are not going to call their evil dreams by their present name because it will convey nothing at all to them, horses being. almost unknown) of the enormous back of avast motorcoach blocking up the road just in front of one' in a narrow lane, with frightful faces grinning, over the back, gilt letters that convey nothing but the sense of infinite horror, and, coming out of the whole rows of exhaust pipes, clouds of smoke that smell as if bottomless their origin was the
or pit. The
nightmare, cauchemar, used either to be an evil beast with heavy hoofs that sat on one's chest and refused to move, or a bellying curtain that one could never find the end of, maybe a following bear that was always catching you up (if he did you die, or else you woke up-and woke everybody else), or something like that; but somehow it seems to me that this last incarnation, this huge Behemoth that will never let you pass, is the worst of the lot, and all the more dreadful when behind you there is just such another only even more fearful. Already the expression "a nightmare of a road" is one of the commodest descrip tions of most of the main entrances. into London on a busy Sunday even- ing, so it shows that the idea has even now begun to catch on.
old
I
[By "Mileator."]
their full meed of romance; they A Little Well-timed Gratitude,
go too much from place to place, one's But enough of horrors;
of a-we
the very towns are too close to- musings at this season hope-bright and happy New Year gether, and the beauty of them more usually take the shape of lies in the country that they pass hopes for a summer that is to through rather than in anything peculiar to themselves. 1 can un- come and that will display such a lot of one's own country that, with- derstand the idea; even the Great out the aid of a pleasant Morris, North Road is occasionally indeter- at all. In minate as to its destination; the one would rever see this last sentence lies a truth that Bath Road is nowadays not much the younger generation can for- more than a three-hour journey; the Portsmouth and the Brighton tunately never properly realise. But to most of us who knew Eng-Roads are mere speedwaya, while land before England knew motors or even, to the few, bicycles that were of any real use-England was an absolutely unknown quantity, for of what value were the railway trains that only stopped at rail- way stations and ran through on- charted fields between them? The Our place of trains took us to boliday and back, we got "home" in them or nas near to it as we could get but of all that lay between home and town, over the hills that were the boundaries of
or any the lives of many of us, where else, was entirely off our beat and out of our reach, far more so than it was to our fore- fathers, who, in their necessary journeyings, had to make use of the same roads that we have once
discovered.
Our
travel again thoughts are much more like those of our great-grandparents than nearer generations. those of much All these latter knew of Britain were the names on the lamps in the railway stations.
The Limitless Highway. "Over the hills and far away!" I wonder who it was that first strung together these magic words, a line that will last longer than any other in any story? You can tack on to it yet another of a later writer: "Where the strange roads go down," for the two together hold a lot of the world's greatest "magic."
we
On the Continent I believe they are wont to mark the mystery of all travel by the course of their mighty rivers; wide rivers that flow for hundreds of miles, separating and uniting countries, fringing the edges of high eternally snow-clad mountains, dividing illimitable forests and carrying on their placid bosoms the traffics of a dozen lands or more. We have no rivers like these because have the sea instead of them; and where their great roads finish in mighty towns and go from one to most part at the water's edge, to another, ours have to end for the pick up their threads again far Across the waters on highways that lead all round the world and back again to home. There are no ends to our roads nowadays; Britons across the seas, love to carve on
sands of miles away it is to London their milestones how many thou- town.
Roaming and Romance. England, according to some, is too small for her ronús to have
TYPES OF DRIVERS. off to sleep when the way is long.
Personality Impresses the Passengers.
GOOD AND BAD.
•
It is surprising how the "st mosphere" of a car can change according to the driver with whom one is blessed (or cursed) There is the driver who inspires con fidence among the passengers; the beneficent control, and one chats easily and naturally or even drops
W. B. MOSES & CO., LTD sent, it becomes difficult to under-gar "feels different under his
gole Agents.
stand how the present stopping place could have been elected!"
What supremely fire test of con- fidence is this to be able to sleep and feel no qualms; would that it were ever so,
the Holyhead Road only answers properly to the description very oc casionally indeed. But the road from Paris to Marseilles can speak for itself, just as do the almost
to
the old-time Berlin, while endless greater routes to Rome and
embark traveller who set out for the Far East overland used to on a journey into the Unknown infinitely more hazardous and ex- citing than anything we imagine as yet--to-day, except, of course, it be in an aeroplane that, going eastward, is able to shorten the night by half its hours, or, westwards, doca its level best to keep in touch with the march of daylight all round the clock.
Can
Possibilities of the Future. Some day and everything is tending to it-the motor is going unknown the to restore
old Romance of the Road again;' for very soon we shall have a Channel tunnel as the beginning of a world's highway that will take Europe in its stride, bend off to the south- ward at Egypt for the Cape, keep straight ahead for India and the Spice Islands, and join up again in the fairyland of China with the other road that left our own on the banks of the Rhine and re-created real civilisation as it found its way ncross Russia and Siberia to stretch out its hands at the end to old Japan. Who knows?
The All-Rubber Car. Whilst I appreciate the dis- interested suggestion of the gentle- man who writes that an easy remedy to traffic congestion is the creation of an all-rubber car to squeeze through the jams, may I suggest in turn to him that, although, I am aware that some folk have iron constitutions, I have not as yet met an individual with a rubber superstructure-surely rub- ber cars for that purpose would demand rubber drivers!
Clocks of South Zeal.
I am always vastly intrigued by the obstinate manner in which the clock of the little 36 ft, church of South Zeal, Devon, disagrees in the times indicated upon its double face. There was a gentleman, once upon a time, who during a re- liability trial was marked in by the
late. He drove round to the other check control as being some minutes
side of the church and proved to the official that he was dead on time. This clock, incidentally, dates from 1222.
becomes strained, and we all keep a sharp lookout In addition to our friend the driver.
When our loquocious sister takes the wheel, we keep an even They who so kindly drive us are sharper look out, especially when many, and at times one strikes un- she has a girl friend sitting beside lucky. Our jumpy friend some- her. The flow of talk never stops, times, takes the wheel-he is well- and, in addition, it is frequently meaning and does, his very best, necessary for her to turn towards but we are hard put to it to main us in order to emphasise "her tain the requisite "poker" faces. speech. Consequently our route He starts off with a jerk, he pulls deviates from the natural, and it up with a fork, he looks quickly is often necessary to yell "Look left and right, his head bobg about out!" in time to save our off side as he scans the instruments fre front wing from receiving a nasty quently, and this performance,bill. Our education in patters when carried on-interminably affecting her love affairs and the apt to be wearing. Conversation latest sales is wonderful.
Now on Display.
SEE THE NEW MODELS EARLY. The Gascon Motor Co.
2, XWONG WAH ROAD,
Tel. K. 1242 and K. 804.
BUY A CAR FOR YOUR
By buying a car from us for your leave you will avoid the difficulty of re- selling it at the end of the will time because we
arrange to buy it back and we will fix the price for the re-purchase before we sell the car to you. Write to
us and arrange
the whole thing. The car will be waiting at the land-
KOWLOON.
LEAVE - WE BUY IT BACK
ing stage with your driving licence when you arrive, Moreover, if you wish, we
will lend you an instructor for three days free of
charge.
Write to us now and we will send you fuller particulars. of the remarkable things we... can and will do for
you.
AUTO AUCTIONS
T
BURLINGTON
GARDENS
OLD BOND ST. LONDON WI
World Distributors of the Blackburn Bluebird Light derapione
MOTOR UNION
INSURANCE CO LT
Incorporated in England (Under the auspices of the Automobile Association) PROMPT AND LIBERAL CLAIM SETTLEMENTS.
LOCAL AGENTS,
THE UNION TRADING Co., Ltd.
Prince's Building.
The very sight of certain dri-1 vers' backe and their poise at the
Phone C. 587.
NOVEMBER BAD MONTH
wheel seem to suggest confidence. November experienced a worse These people appear to be in their record in automobile fatalities right place; but many another than an month of 1929 except takes the whebiras though he has August, in the former month to be there, because he was the there were 104 deaths daily car, yet wishes devoutly that there over America, while November were some other way out of it had 108;