1957-02-20 — Page 4

Page

Today we print a story, deliberately, "out of

THE CHINA - MAIL, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY“ 20,“

· Together - with the 'news item,

tells the full tragedy of a disastrous fire in one of Britain's most enterprising factories.

SWALLOWS AND JAGUARS TEAMED

D

UP IN HIS DREAMS

R Samuel Smiles would no doubt have been cheered Immensely had he been able to read the newspaper cuttings on Sir William Lyons.

Sir William, in fact, would almost certainly have rated a chapter all to himself in "Self-Help." He ex- hibits all the virtues which constituted the sole delight of that highly virtuous if somewhat pompous Victorian.

At 54, the tal, white-hatred, motorcyclista as well as to car Immaculate, selinus. le takes owners.

nly 20 minutes for lunch and keeps himself well out of the headlines and The gossip

columns.

He still belleves Brmly that he has a duty to the public, to his employees, and to his share- holder-and that these in no way conflict nithough their order of precedence is firmly established. The pubile, certakti- ly, comes frat In St William's estimation.

Dr Smiles would have noted all this and would not have bea it The least surprises, therefore,

to learn thurt, while

olher motor manufacturers aro running Burev-day-weeks, rent- Ing folds in which to store their urplus automobiles, and pro- phesying doom and destruction,

Young men, furthermore, best of all to show off to girl-iends,

like their

Str

by Les Armour

Πνε and n bank

guaanteed by obliging fathers, of paper asking them to guess Those he took and installed in a its price, shed.

overdraft the car, he passed around slips

As he had suspected, the side- Cars were just what motor cyclials had been waiting for,

A short time later, Lycos had moved to a bigger, better equipped factory-and begun to Jook around for something bigger to do.

He noted that Austin chussia

Some reckoned £800, others £600. The lowest price guessed (or Lytng 90 m.p.h, luxury car wa £445.

Then he told them the real price: £385.

They went back to their type- writers suitably impressed.

Then cane the war nud

Now, at the time when William (then plain Bill he left little to be desired, but to Jaguars tuned to aircraft pro-

Jaguar Factory Knocked Out By Million-Pound Blaze

Coventry, Feb. 13.

Hall the Britishy Jaguar car factory was destroyed by a fire last night.

for raged hours before under

control

almost thebe being brought by 20 fire

engines.

A spokesman for the company

estimated the damage would, at the "most optimistic esti- mate,"

into run

"acveral million pounds." He described the fire as "an absolute tragedy," and sald It would halt production for several month The firm employ 4,000 people,

When the fire broke out, nearly

all the employess had loft the bullding, and only about 50 clerical staff and mel. tanance workers remained. Several firemen were

but come by fumes,

no other casualtiĉo.— China Moli Special.

were

Over- there

this year) went the man with a taste for comfort duction, carefully Bling away bushes, inotorcyclists and luxury, the bodies of the an envelope

Str William is worrying about was knighted the difficulty of producing into tough cars là incel the demand, sufferedi from

To D- Suites, the relation between Str Willmen's VIRTUC end his surees. would hate ap peazes me a sumple relation of cause and effect.

rast certain

Apa: hom the fact that this theory would doubts upon the virtue of other motor makers. Dr Smules' these a folls, because it simply isn't true.

Sr WILL TH 13 inore Uhan Viritous. Ile is also brilliant. And his brilliance is probably more important than his virtue.

To begin with, he had a first- class idea.

Thirty-four years ngo, hic divined that the motoring public loves to show off. And that ap- piled, then and

us now,

THIS SEAL

IS YOUR

GUARANTEE

Handlerp Their wither had to ride pillion or to squeeze themselves into a tiny box-like contraption which passed for a sidecor.

Neither was conducive female grace and comfort.

10

marked "project

And, when the war was foished, X, actually, was 20 engine.

the engineers went back to work un it,

h enormous smaller Austais were not quite X".

small way, girl-friends up to the same standard. In a bodies for Austin chassis and he he began to build showed

some of then at the next Motor Show.

The next thing he knew was tint Blockpool's Station Master ***S on the telephone asking what blazes he Was to do with the carloads of Austi chassis which were cluttering up his railyards.

SIDECAR

therefore designed the Swallow sidecar sleek, well- sprung, well padded, weather- just expensive enough to ensure proof appendage which

quality

wd Just cheap enough to ensure that almost anyone who could afford motor-cycle could also afford a Swallow.

its

The Anished X didn't meet Lyons approval. Neither did X-A or B or C or D. Ultimate-

y, XK looked like the job.

BASIC ENGINE

The plant

WOM to Usc onc basic engine

type to

power a Whole range of cars. The point was to sell it in ce type first and then market the lot,'

**His Majesty appreciates you have known them longer than he, O General, but nevertheless requests that you refrain from calling him 'Bud.'"'

NATHANIEL GUBBINS

Old King Saud Was a merry old bod, And merry old bod

was he....

«

Lyons. WALA

almost for the first time in his life, was stumped.

I was just about to write His production he was gene- ed to produce two bodies a day.

you a parody about old King Meanwhite, Austins had been

Saud of Arabia, who was calmly taking orders for Austin Swallows as fast as they came

Lyons reasoned that, if he recently feted and fawned

the With his design in his pocket, in. Apparently nobody in Austing could saility sports

our car upon by

American he was had stopped to find

out what inibile,

away. So friends on account of his oil sort of organisation the Swallow emerged the XK120-looking wells, when chops from the ittle like something from Mars firm had.

cross-bred with something from Bond Street.

to he acquired a partner, a staff of

You Get The Best

when

you buy-

MIKIMOTO

CULTURED PEARLS

but Insist on

obtaining free copy of THE MIKIMOTO GUARANTEE

BOOKLET

MIKIMOTO CULTURED PEARLS

are available at

J. A. WINDSOR & CO.

9. Hankow Road, Kowloon.

M KUNG BROTHERS & CO.,

OF GENUINE MIKIMOTO PEARLS

Miramar Arcade,

Nathan Road, Kowloon. OR FROM THE SOLE AGENTS

Lane Crawford's

THE DEPARTMENT STORE ON DES VOEUX ROAD, C.

YOUR ALLY A GOOD PRINTER

·

effective

What's the first step toward printing? Just this: call in a good printer right from the start. Whatever your requirements, his fund of experience wil be invaluable in helping you to design, to select type, and to choose the right paper for the job.

Nevertheless, he rose to the pccasion, increased his staff and worked day and night until the Blackpool rallyards were clear- ed.

The secret was simple: The Swallow looked like a million- and sold for £187.

In 1928, Lyon packed his factory-erally-into woode boxes and moved it to Coventry. There he began to get the crea Live itch agak. Molor body Luilding was all very well, but it did not fulfil his nibition.

He went across town one day to the Standard plant and talk- ed to Captain John Black (later Sir John).

Black agreed to build chassis to Lyons specifications.

was:

What

car?

The problem should they call the new Lyons insisted that i should be called Swallow Sports. Black

inalsted on Standard Speelal.

They compromised on "SS"— and each privately gave it his own interpretation,

The first of the new cars ap- peared at the Motor Show of 1831. A massive 20 horse power saloon, It sold for just £323. In the next few years, other models, equally opulent looking. but selling a prices down 10

£210, rolled off the lines,

By 1935, there were a 1,000 men working in the Swallow plant which sprawled over 500,000 square feet of factory space,

EARLY JAGS

for

than that,

It did sell, and It did

more

gas company arrived to fit a water heater in the bath- room of the new nest.

SIR WILLIAM LYONS

"the public como first"

In 1951, a Jaguar sports car finished at Le Mans 00 miles ahend of its nearest rival, IL had led from first to last and set

up a new 24-hour speed record. Not for 20 years, had a British sports car won,

for

INVADES U.S.

At ono

all

FAMSHINGTON

were

When I had listened to them now going to turn us from an that the only ilme our hammering a hole in the wall island alteraft carrier into a American friends

settled down to work again rocket site for suided missiles genuinely fond of us was when reading an American reporter's with atomic war-heads,

we were about to be knocked bless account of how old King Saud, Well,

our American cold in 1940. Some friends are after wolding a dinner of 12 friends. They

always often fonder of you when you courses,

called

three of his thinking up something nice for are dead. deal with some us, and I shouldn't be at all counsellors to of the wide boys In the oil surprised if our best Amerleon friend of all, dear old Foster Dulles, thought up this one.

business.

But

he

are

As any fool can see that we are likely to be No. 1 rocket

Water party

target for our Russian friends DOWNSTAIRS

Le

*

Ая

When

This news seemed to provide more lines for the parody: They asked for his oli

the place With a joke and a smolle

seemed full of plumbers. for called

not surprising that

So I took the opportunity of diddlers three....

thousands are queueing up to asking why, even if the gas when the foreman knocked on

Cmigrate.

plumber wasn't allowed to flx the my door and said he couldn't

builder's plumber a new washer on the stop-cook, turn off the stop-cock because arrived

he said although he couldn't

the Water Board it needed a new washer,

could put a washer on the stop-

job instead of I said

want to be

cock inside the house he could plumber do the said why did

in bringing

the builder's turn off the stop-cock as there not do anything outside the

plumber. was no freeze-up, and he said house.

After a shocked silence a be couldn't finish the job unless

I said who asked him to do

spokesman then salt, "The he could cut the water supply: And he sold the Water Board house, outside the anything

Water Board never comes in- I then asked if he could put

zide a house unicas invited,” a new washer on all by himself would have to cut off the water

outside the house. without bothering me,

So I tele- The fordman

phoned the Waler Board. couldn't

Back at my desk I read that fix a

The Plucky Little our American friend President 'exhausted in bed after the because it 'was a plumber's Eisenhower has told the wide move,. called from her room; job, and when sald fixing a water heater Whe

super plumber's job, so he must be a super plumber, he said he was a gan man and not * water man,

said

ho

new washer

Although he could do it in a Jiffy the gas company wouldn't allow him Interfere with the water supply. I must get bullder's plumber,

Nice future

ก

Woman,

boys of Texas that they must "Why not invite the entire send us more oll quickly Water Board and Gas Board because our

American friends and have a party? And why, "do not wont to see us flat on not invite the removal мет our back."

too? Then they could put the This may mean that they furniture in the right places if would at least like to see a 1 didn't give them too many

drinks Brst."

ого

sporting contest. They would like to see us get up at the

A last look at the papers told count of nine båtore

We are

me that another American hit by a rocket fired at us by friend, rock, 'n roll Bill Haley, Dur Russian friends. Or it said: "I guess English audiences may just mean that they don't and people are different to want to see us knocked cold ours." because then there would be Maybe they are more intelli- nobody to blame for every gent with the possible excep¬ took another

thing

tion of those who run - Gas noted paper's and

If this is so I am surprised, Boards and Water Boards, American friends are because I seem to remember

(World copyright.)

WHEN I had telephoned the

bullder

peek at the that our

I

Beyond Civilisation's · Last

Frontiers They Wage War Against

Disease And Ignorance

TF you were two hundred

I

on to Peru.

By W. RAMSAY

much,

DC

Jaguar cars suddenly blossom- track. There for seven days and

miles, out from the ed into the headlines.

seven nights they drove it at mouths of the Amazon, two more than 100 miles cu hour hundred miles out in the ascend the Amazon nowadays to Too frequently the rewards of stopping only

Ocean steamers people they are seeking to help, drivers, and new tyres.

fuel, new Atlantic Ocean from where the Peruvian the waters of that mighty 2,500 miles

town of Iquitos, good intentions has been, 4 from the sea, violent

death, Motoring purists unsered at

river surge clear of the Smaller scamera reach the very

Yot the missionaries have the 'newcomer. It was, they

American Continent, you foot of the mountain chain that complished

Equipped thought, too "flashy". Further

would still feel the eastward run parallel with the Preife with medicine, and courage, more, it was aiming too

At the end, the XK120 was pressure of them.

You canal of South America.

brought health, Janow- they have above Its station. A car at that That was only the beginning, running as well as ever.

ledge, and a degree of prosperity The might even be able to detect price couldn't possibly live up in 1953, the first

Nevertheless there four cars at rumours ceased.

are tribes to legions of men who would to the tools Lyons had given it. Le Mans were Jaguars. They

them by taste, noting their in the country of the Amazon otherwise be like those natives won again in 1959.

Yet agak Lyons

With this record behind him, lack of saltiness.

and its network of tributaries who still live under Stone Age But rony of these early this year when the privately

invaded the United

who might be living in the conditions. "Jage" are still on the roads, enterod Ecurie Ecosso Jaguar

States.

Such is the force of the Im- Slone Age, so remote from the Formerly indiferent, South handsome, as ever,

and able to romped home ahead of expen-

time. 85 percent of mense flow which pours into twentieth century is their modo American authoritica now make cope with most of the present sive competition.

Jaguars built went to the Atlantic near the Brazilian of existence. There are prob- generous contributions to assist day competition,

America, Since the war, more aport of Para, and which has ably a quarter of a million of the efforia of individual mig. Meanwhile, they won the than $00,000,000 worth of them been sweeping through the these aborigines all told:

blonaries Ja the Amazon hinterland of South America for That year, Lyons engineers arduous 2,000 mile Coupe des have been sold there.

country. completed the work they had Alpes three times running and, Demand still pushes supply more than a million years a<- Dedicated efforts ---

Theirs

on enormous been doing for some time on a this year, the Llege-Reine-Llego hard-even in' the world's cording to geologists,

"parish" for the river is 3,660 Jitre engine which, they Rally and the Monte Carlo toughest market.

Long-halced Indians in cotton But many more who would be miles long and its valley and thought, would offer more Bally.

There was at low cost than any Jaguars could build cars, and, eves the current export price of great river is known, and which efforts of

have a Jaguar for £210, alle for the name by which the ton today but for the dedicated miles, or more than the Wilmis thing on the market,

Lyons boast that "we may the £895

missionaries who rippl Bad Nile basins put to- for the now 2.4 litres a misnomer. When sighted by have gone among them... Lyong summoned his advertices we sell, and vice versa anloon. is a highly competitive

gether, Francisco Orellana and his crew,

A great deal has been done to sing department and ordered seemed to be true in substance one,

The exles of the natives in There are no better printers in town than- them to bring him a Nosh-Uko at least.

a price that will compete the first Europeans to navigate those vast territories. are the open up the almost mitless ro with

American

the lower renches, those familiar scourges list of the creatures of the earth,

of malaria, sources of the Amazon valley, of There wane, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, LIMITED the air, and the soa. In the end wave of rumours to the effect The theory is that Jaguar is a female was the legends of are added such lurking hazards credit

course, cers, cheapest sceptics. At one time, there was.

Indiang Price is not the only factor.

oro ¡were mistaken for malnutrition, amallpox, leprosy rnd, when those resources ho chose Jaguar becature,

Warriors

the Amazma and other discases, to which ultimately developed to the full, suid, it “bus, power, speed, grace that Jaguar had no slaying custom-built car at a stock-car

duo in great will: bo everything we went.”

power. Lyons ordered Sirling price. That may be an illusion ancient drecer,

des poisonous' antikes, alligators, measure to men and women who Mong by then his top: But is certainly behaves, Ilke, a *That was in 1841. Since then, jaguara,"

have consecrated themselves to With his fale for publicity, driver to tako. a · team custom job -erick looks like one, ships of far larger dénight than The enciales of the mission= "grappling with disease and he called a press conference of drivers and '0 Jogune Anitlusion that is good enough Orellana's have forged their way aries are all of these,and, Ignorance: beyond tho [After he had shown reporters XK120 out of stock to a Paris for Americats buyers,”

through the beart of Brazil' and 'often, the fierce hostility of the frontiers of Civillation.

Printing Department

Wyndham Street

Tel: 20007

power

1

no doubt that, od, although, 'you can no shirts were unwittingly respon- sharing, thoir, miserable condi". watershed cover 2,700,000 equaro

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