1930-12-31 — Page 3

HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1930.

MOTOR NOTES

UNPUNCTURABLE TYRE!

THOUGHTLESS PEOPLE WHO

FUEL

When we started out that morning. VAN RUNS ON SOLID there were four clearly defined *fints "—one in each wheel. For a |few, yanda" "äll"four"""Ants" cams; into action simultaneously; but the first corner, threw them out of

་

LEAVE NAILS ON THE ROAD.synchronism, and the car's carly progress was accompanied by a chorus of "Ouch!" from the crow. Presently the sausago ment warmed up, and the drive, became mo mentarily tolerable. Then a broken bottle or flint chipped a chunk of rubber out of one back tyre, and aumu eagle eye dotected a trail of green sausage-meat on the rond.

At hendquarters a squad of strong nien, armed with the aforesaid 12ft. levers, was held in readings, to fit spare tubes when required; but an inexorable R.A.C. observer was con pelling us to travel away from headquarters, That chipped back yn was simply pouring recen mincement on to the road; the back springa had been reinforced to solidity to take the impnet of the stuffed tyres, and our teeth were, coming loose in our heads. Never did four men welcome the end of a thusiasm! day's motoring with such en-

Those of us who cut our motor. ing teeth in the late nineties of last century suffered indescribable tribulations with tyres, but we took, ed forward with unconquerable hops to a fature era of unpuncturable tyres an era which has yet to dawn. We used covers which wore out in 1,000 miles. We applied as `many as a dozen patches in a single day, well knowing that the weak grubber solution of the period would dry up and allow the patch to lift or peel as soon as the tyre got bot. Later on, in sheer desperation, we enquetted with weird inventions which claimed to end tyre stop piger.

There was a certain terrible tyre, which was boldly advertised as un- puncturable, and was, perhaps, the first exponent of truth in advertis-

Successful Evolution.

In those days everybody was in, for the claim was very nearly certain that some epochmaking in true. Memory assures me that this vention would ultimately solve the portentous cover had some three tyre problem, and nobody seemed to inches of solid rubber on its tread, dream that the millennium might The weight of it, was enormous, consist of nothing more starting Its tread was as stiff as a plank, than the gradual perfecting of the I doubt if a very strong man with pneumatic tyre. Yet this is what a sledge-hanumer could have driven has happened. Our passable in any commercial nail through it.

But even this brilliant impromptu due to research having made the munity from road stops is simply was not devoid of anaga. Embedded very most of an ancient device. in the bead of the gigantic cover of course, improvements in roads were innumerable steel studs. Each have played their part. Modern stud had to be coaxed through tiny hole in the wheel rim. It was stitute rubber soles for hobnails, roads perinit the pedestrian to sub not, an impossible matter to insertThe horse is obsolescent; and with the first few studs on the first bead him has gone that little of iron to be engaged but only a hybrid mongery by which he registered his hetween Macchiavelli and Hercules could hope to insert the final studs

of the second bead. And when the studs were inserted-all 48 of them Buts had to be threaded into place -48 washers, 45 nuts, and 48 lock and well screwed home.

passing.

Wy used to say that most of our

punctures occurred in the rear tyres, because the back wheels drive, courages them to impale themselves nud the force of the drive en

on lurking nails with more success than a mildly rolling front wheel. Yet I once mot a voice crying n different tale in the wilderness.

A Painful Experience. There ensued a moratorium for tyre inventions, and anon some This particular inventor could genius composed a species of green not afford to buy a car, and con- sausage-meat, which was pumped ducted his tests with motor cycles,. into ordinary tubes by some secret en which he claimed to have cover process. The stuffed tube was then ed 100,000 miles without a single forced into the half-sented cover by punature. His small tyres were strong men armed with 12ft. levers hardly thicker than the tongue of at special service stations. The in a gof-stoe, and his theory was that venter smelt a gold mine, and char. every well-conducted nail shed from tered a special R.A,C, trial of in a horseshoe or a rickoty cart in credible length which was duly run stantly lics flat in the road. A nail off with the aid of a' big-Siddeley, lying flat obviously cannot enter a Wolseley, if I remember rightly. Ityry. So the inventor alleged that think 40,000 miles was the distnace it was always a front wheel which contemplated.

was the culprit: the front wheel But even this invention. had its flicked the recumbent anil into the faults. It happened that The Auro, vertical; and before the astounded en sent me up North to spend a nail could lie down again the rear day on the car, which had thon tyre had hurtled up and swallowed covered about 14,000 miles. The it So the inventor used a little green sausage-meat sort of congeal-lenther flap fixed between front and ed during the periods when the car rear wheels, to flick the nails down was in garage, and especially did it again; and he never, never pune- congen! into fat at the bottom tured! Or so he said. - Personally. are of the cover which took the I think luck was with him.-R. H. weight of the stationary car.

DAVIES in The Autoehr.

HIRE A CAR TO DRIVE YOURSELF

WHEN ON LEAVE

Or if you require a car for more than 8 weeks, we will supply any make new or used,withguaranteed repurchase price.

Write for Tariff.

L. F. DOVE, LTD. Automobile Engineers,

115, Addiscombe Road,

CROYDON,

LONDON.

TEN MILES A PENNY

MOTORING.

VETERANS OF THE ROAD.

1903 CAR WINS 56-MILE RACE IN 83 MINUTES.

"OLD CROCKS" PERFORM:

WELL.

Fifty-one veteran motor-cars, Botne of which had been used as hen roosts and dog kennels, others. abandoned in the folds, and all A Ford 1-ton vas," making its owende before the end of 1904, chug gae from British coke, recently. travelled with a load of four per. Eed and rattled along from London sons, averaging 10 stone cach, 50 to Brighton recently in the old miles at a cost of bd., or 10 miles crocks" race, organised by the for id. less, looked more like black butter the thirty-fourth anniversary of The coke used, practically smoke. Royal Automobile Club to celebrate beans than coke. It cost 30s. a. Emancipation Day, when the neces ton, and between 31ib. and 32lb.sity of driving 'behind a man with were consumed.

a red flag was abolished by Act of Parlinument.

This van is the first to be fitted with an experimental portable gen- erator patented by Mr. Norman chester industrial chemist. Clarke Jones, a London and Man-

Both the Government, and the coal trade are interested in it as promising a incans of utilising what opening up a new market for the was formerly a waste product and

coal industry.

Fire Lighted. The apparatus, fixed on the side of the van, is a large-sized cylinder with a

five outwardly invisible, underneath,

To start wood and shavings, are placed in the bottom fire chamber, or ash collector, and coce placed in the hopper or top unit. The fire is lighted and a forced draught given by the blower.

"In from 10 to 15 minutes the coke

The first car to arrive at the Brighton Aquarium was a 1903. De Dietrich racer, driven by Mfr. R. O. Shuttleworth. It is claimed that

able of 60 mp.h., and it covered his Paris-Madrid type racer is cap-

the 50-mile route in the excellent time of thr. 23min. 508cc. A 1903 mercédès driven by Mr. A. H. R. Fedden, next, arrived; its time was gbr. 3min. 558cc. The third was an

1899 Progress Voiteurette, driven by Mr. M. E. Davenport; it did the distance in shr. 14min. sec.

One of the last cars to arrive was an 1800 Daimler belonging to Mr.

SNAPSHOTS OF A MAN STEADYING A TABLE

By GLUYAS WILLIAMS

FINDS TABLE IS UN- STEADY

AS SOON AS WAITER HAS GONE, REMOVES THE SECOND WEDSE

FOLDS UP MENU AND © ́INSERTS IT UNDER

SHORT LEG

WAITER COMES UP TO ASK WHAT THE TROUBLE IS.

·EXPLAINS TO HIM THE TABLE

WAITER INSERTS AN- OTHER FOLDED MENU UNDER ANOTHER LEG,

GIVES HIMSELF MEAN. CRACK ON TABLE AS HE RESUMES SITTING. POSITION

WABBLED BUT IT28 ALLRIGHT, MAKING TABLE WABBLE HE'S FIXED IT.

AGNN

WAITER HAS MEANWHILE

·REPORTED TO MANAGER, WHO COMES UP, SHAKES

· · TABLE VIGOROUSLY, AND SENS IS ALLRIGHT NOW

Lundies 10-16 (Copyright, 1930, by The Ball Byndicate, Inc.)

when

is converted by air and steam into R. O. Shuttleworth, which was a gas chiefly composed of monoxide

piloted by an adventurous party of Later, did hydrogen.

he Bounded his youths. During the journey one of "hooter" as he was overtaking a the tyres came off and the driving woman cyclist, the woman looked chain broke in three places. They round and was apparently so as managed to patch up the chain, tonished that she fell off her cyclo And, by pushing the car up bills, struggled to the end on three tyros.

The engine is started on petrol and after a while is switched over to the coke gas. No control of the gas other than by the throttle is neceranry. placed to the fire box to the time. the van left for the ran was 20 minutes. The route taken gave a fair test of the vat, under traffic | and country road conditions.

From the time that a match was

Wo

Buried for 27 Years.

went through Ealing, Osterley, Vipen, also had an exciting journey, Cranford

Mr. F. Harvey, who drove an 1808 Bridge. Colnbrock,

Road. Slough, and on to the Beaconsfield His first adventure was a collision with a tram-car on Brixton Hill

Over 30 Miles an Hour. Between 39 and 34 miles an hour was the highest speed reached, and the average maintained was 21 miles an hour.

When the van returned to Enling the consumption of coke worked out. at just over 311b,, valued at 5d. The same van running on petrol at 15. id, a gallon for a light distance. uses a gallon every 14 miles, and costs 38. Lid, for 50 miles.

The success of the experimental' | apparatus, the inventor says, •bad only been made possible by the-Low Temperature Carbonisation Com pany experts discovering a clever way to stop coke from clinkering. The fire was raked out after the run and there was ash only and no clinker of the smallest size.

VETERAN DRIVER FINED.

A motorist who said he was the oldest member of the Automobile Club was fined £5 and ordered to pay £8 88. costs at Ealing recently; for driving a car in a dangerous manner at Ealing Broadway.

He was Mr. Frank Armstrong, head of the Middlesex College of Music at Uxbridge and for 18 years organist at the Eolian Hall.

Evidence was given that he:- Passed a stationary tramear on the near side;

Knocked down a girl; Ignored a policeman's signal, and drove on.

A Spirited Defence.

Mr. Armstrong denied that his car touched the girl, who, he said, must have fallen down of her own acoord,

..

We read in the Press every day," he added, "of careless pede- strians who do not look where they are going and throw the blame ou the poor motorists. I have had to wait nearly all day here, and I 'think it is an awful shame. I think this pedestrian should pay me for not looking where she was going; she might have damaged my car,"

Mr. Armstrong has been a motor- ist, since the early days of mator- ing.

FINDS MANAGER HAS SHA- KEN FIRST WEDGE FROM: UNDER LEG, CAUSING TABLE TO WABBLE AGAIN.. MOVES TO ANOTHER TABLE

1000 Fiat, at one time' touched in back to London.

Sir Maxwell Monson, who drove a tended to drive their “old crocks. speed of 35 miles an hour, and after reaching Brighton he toured the cara entered completed the journey, Forty-eight out of the fifty-one

town with eight passengers. Mr. D. forty-seven of them doing the dis on to the car raditaor. Fortunate M. Copley, who drove an 1808 tance in the required time. Oront ly, she was not injured. This car Diamler, had driven it from crowds watched the progress of the had been dug up for the occasion Birmingham to London in order to "old crocks" all, along the route, buried in a held at Hindhead for nounced that he was returning to complained that they had been by Mr. Harvey after it had been take part in the race, and on- and a number of the comretitors badly handicapped when climbing years. It was exhibited at the Birmingham in it. A number of hills by the spectators crowding in Agricultoral Hall in 1898.

other entrants stated that they in- front of their cars.

See the new

FIATS on view in our

Showrooms.

The immediate impression is one of majestic beauty and inherent power: impressions which are more than confirmed by an experience at the wheel

....

The performance is amazing: the luxury beyond compare. For sheer honest value in the luxury

car class you will find nothing comparable with FIATS

And to realise that we will buy your old car on generous terms, and so enable you to become the

proud owner of a new FIAT, simply by adding a few hundred dollars.

Supreme perfection

in engine, clutch, gears, brakes, cool- ing and suspension.

FIAT CARAGE: 350, Hennessy Road,

LANCIA GARAGE:

Praya East.

614

FATS

4 CYLINDER

219

& CYLINDER

Arrange

SHELL MOTOR OILS for a trial

Every drop tells.

run.

A. GOEKE & Co.

CHINA BUILDING, 4TH FLOOR. PHONE: 22221.