1930-08-23 — Page 16

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH." MOTORING SUPPLEMENT.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1930.

-MARATHON MOTORCAR RACING

TROLLEY BUSES IN U.S.

The New

AIR-FLIGHT

TmTo Retiro

GETA FISKI

• TRASEUS BAT. OFF,

PRINCIPLE

THE MOST CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE OF SUPERIORITY

Here are the 7 Points of Superiority that the Air-Flight Principle Tires by FISK, alone can offer you

I-Larger Air Chamber

2-All Cord Process 3-Multiple Cable Bead

4-Increased Flex Area

5-Stream Line Tread

6-Greater Road Contact 7-The Air-Flight_Balance

FISK

TIME TO

RE-TIBE

GET A FISK I

MAD MALE XIS, SAS, PAT, WIN,

mileage

Sole Distributora.

GILMAN & Co., Ltd.

44, Des Voeux Road.

Tel. 2801I.

DUE IN HONGKONG TO-DAY!

The Motoring Sensations

of the year!

FIAT 514

THE NEW FOUR-CYLINDER MODELS

and

the-

FIRTS24E

SIX CYLINDER MODELS.

Arrange for an early Demonstration.

A. GOEKE & COMPANY,

China Building, 4th Floor. Tel. 22221.

FIAT GARAGE,

Des Vœux Road Central. Tel. 24821.

LANCIA GARAGE,

151, Praya East. Tel. 23537.

IN 1906.

Twenty-four Hours of Commercial Speeding, 24 Years Ago.

THE WINNER'S RUN OF 900 MILES.

"What-cha-think a fella's got to mcchuhie comes out with a hurri- write about? This show wouldn't cane lamp in his hands. stir a flutter in a young ladies' Sunday school."

"Step on her, Bobl We'll show that son of a gun if he can stop us with his dirty flag."

Slewing and Yawing.

Almost as he spoke a car flashed by us and at that precise instant its left front wheel became detach. ed and continued-its free course

As the mechanic utters his ahead of the machine. Deprived defiance he jumps on to one of the of support on one corner, the car cross-members of the chassis, just swerved to the left, broke through above the gear box, braces his feet: the railing on the edge of the against the rear members and the infield, throwing a dozen "railside rails and, with the lamp in birds" who had gathered there, his arms, carefully sheltered from despite all police supervision, malicious currents, he allows him- roughly to the ground, and con- self. to be whirled around tast tinued for some two or three hun-rutty dirt track at a speed of over dred yards across the grass before forty miles an hour. The car it toppled over wearily on the slews and yaws on the bends, cut- point where the wheel should have ting in head of others in defiance been.

of all sporting etiquette; at times. it is one of group. 80 closely packed that by leaning over the mechanic might touch the car to the left, the one to the right, and the one astern, but never for an instant does he cease to nurse the lamp and direct its beam rear wards.

There's your story," I shouted to the yellow journalist who had been bemoaning the lack of incident, as I set off hot-foot after the disabled car.

Driver Strang jumped from his seat and, without so much as glance rearwards at the damage he had done, yelled, "Eh, you guys, beat it back to New York and ret

me a new axle.”

Throttle Tied Open. When they had gone, and the attendants were busy removing the damaged axle, the driver apared time to explain that his threttle had a tendency to close, and, as it was too tiring to hold it open with the hand on the steer ing wheel, he had fastened it in the full

open position with adhesive tape. When the front wheel came off the clutch refused to come out, with the result that the car careered wildly on its three wheels until the switch could be found. The fact that the ambulance had carried several people away to the hospital entire ly failed to impress him.

to

We wandered into the pits. In

Trolley bus

or

bus trolley.

Pittsburgh July 12th-The era superintendent of shops and of the noisy, clanking street car equipment of the Chicago surface is passing and in its stead comes lines says, "It is the most impor the quiet, flexible electric trolley tant contribution to mass trans bus.

portation since the advent of the Several mid-wester cities have first electric street car.

the modern acceptance of the adapted this bus. Detroit, Chica- The buses take electric power go and Cincinnati are among from an overhead trolly line and term there were no pits; but there them. The reasons for the adopare operated by automatic vari was an in-field, with tents, tools,tion are these::

able accelerating rate foot control. spares, drums of petrol and stacks

DJ

of tyres, and the helpers, official Noiseless operation; flexibility Two 50-horsepower high-speed and unofficial, were all bubbling which permits them, by means of motors drive the balloon-tyrod rear over with vim and enthusiasm. a special trolley, to detour ten feet wheels. Brakes are operated When a car came in they swarmed on either side of the centre under-air.

Comfortaby Fitted. over it; they fought for the neath the trolley wires; no offensive honour of being the first to touch gases for passengers or pedes-

Electric heaters provide comfort the radiator cap; they swung big trians to breathe because of the drums of petrol as if they had electric motors which generate 50 in the trolleys in winter and eight been mugs of beer; knives hacked horsepower without burning gasoventilatora maintain a supply of bus has 40 at tyres; the language was lurid line; efficient use of street space; fresh air. Each

leather-upholstered seats inside and sulphurous; and when the car rapid pickup.

When Chicago Inaugurated its with a buzzer signal at each one. had roared back to the track it

The flexible trolley enables the was no unusual occurrence for trolley bus service with 41 cars

to pull into the curb for some of the discussions to be early this year, it was in the form buses settled by a scientific and of an experiment. Now it

passengers and thus eliminate the adopted the buses as an accepted possibilities of an accident to vigorous swing of the fist.

means of transportation. -

passengers who now step, into the street to board a street car. Also by this means, and by means of a

The atmosphere was heavy with petrol fumes. A foreign car, as the filler cap was being screwed

Great Transportation Aid.`

has

WATCHING OIL.

Scouring the Crankcase.

ROLLS-ROYCE WAY.

"Who asked them guys to come and sit about on the rail?" He down, burst into flames, probably Twenty-one buses are operated 31-mile-an-hour speed, the buses asked emphatically, if not parti- as the result of a match struck during rush hours and the head can move around in traffic and cularly grammatically.

by somebody a few yards in the "There's nothing.

worry rear. Coats, rugs, fire extin-way. is a mere two minutes be- pass the slower automobiles which

tween buses. H. H. Adams, often hold up street cars. about," remarked the yellow guishers were all brought into journalist, who had returned after action, but It was ten minutes telephoning his "story" to a news- before the fire Bad been stined paper office on lower Broadway, and another hour before the car They jumped in bravely, worked "Only a few bones broken; but I returned to the track. guess you gave some of those birds These twenty-four hour drivers feverishly for a few seconds, then spring back to safety as a group never knew when they were of cars roared down on them at 8 scare."

It was a race a twenty-four beaten. A wiry, red-headed Irish-the reduced speed of twenty miles hour race run on a dirt track in man changed eight tyres in the an hour. From time to time some the suburbs of New York exactly afternoon and evening; he broke hot-headed youngster endeavour twenty-four years ago. At that a wheel; he and his assistantsed to set a faster pace, only to skid time America had few roads; she replaced the clutch: for three wildly, despite the chains on his had no autodromes, but she had hours the radiator had been leak-wheels, and for a few seconds to It is common knowledge that cars, of both home and foreign ing like a sieve; but after every disappear entirely from view in when a car is new the all in the production, and full-blooded stop for replenishments he rushed youths who positively delighted in off: raced ahead of the leader, and the sea of mud which he threw crankcase should be drained off and replenished by fresh lubricant hurtling them round one-mile dirt added a few more miles to his tracks built for trotting horses- score until a too liberal supply, But even the most resisting of after a few hundred miles. Further, she had a virile" public of cold water over-heated these driver-acrobats could rarely reason for this, of course, is that which preferred strong emotions cylinders caused the jackets to stand up to such punishment for however "clean" a new casting mixed with its pleasures, and burst and the metal to fly sky-more than half an hour. Lifted may be; there is necessarily an which took a real delight in wards in a thousand pieces. watching those drivers flirt with death.

on

"Special Constables." "Beat it!" shouted my com-

"Who?" panion. "They's coming."

around him.

The

off their mud-coated cars, they amount of grit and other impuri- were carried into the sodden tents, ties which mix with the oil when where their eyes, ears and noses the engine is first run and forms a were relieved of the omnipresent mild grinding paste! If the oil is There was a delightful freedom

mud. Plied with hot drinks, drained out, most of this abrasive In the regulations. Anything on

frictioned, tended like delicate goes with it and after further four wheels could be entered, and usually it was a chassis with a

"Why, the Pinkerton men, you childern, or made to recover by a drainings and replenishments, the couple of bucket seats, sometimes bonehead."

vigorous slap on the back, accord- interior of the engine becomes re- without a bonnet, or if it had one,

He dragged me into a tent stock-ing to the temperament of the latively clean

The manufacturers of Rolls for its presence was preferable, ed with

tyres, tools, pistons, team manager, they went back to with exhaust pipes cut flush with valves and radiators, and there I the face the relentless pelting of Royce cars, however, employ a the sides. At night, when red and learned that the management, rain and mud. sparing neither method which removes these im- blue flames shot forth, there was annoyed by the several outbreaks themselves nor their machines. purities In the preliminary engine

an engine something diabolic in the scene, of fire, and exasperated by the It was a hard, grim, barbarous, tests. When but there was the practical advan large numbers of intruders who unscientific school of training, assembled it is placed on a test. tage that a missing cylinder could had found their way to the in-field, having little in common with the bed and is run in gently, under its be detected instantly.

had given orders to the Pinkerton 24 hour races of to-day, but it It was thrilling during daylight men to clear the ground, and these helped to develop both men and in by external power, for this re- to watch sixteen cars hurtling

private police were doing their machines. round a dirt surface little more work with American yigour and The Winner and the Purse. than a mile in circumference, but thoroughness. Forming a line it was hair-raising at night.

Tony,

diminutive, 'a

own power. It is not "motored"

verses the stresses. Also running' of this sort is necessary with a Rolls, for everything is built to across the field they advanced.

wiry such limits of accuracy that the No Luxury in Those Days. with drawn staffs, and everybody Italian, his olive skin hidden unit is perfectly free before it has in front of them not engaged on under a lather of mud, oil and fired at all. This early test is. Acetylene flares cast a very un- some apparently useful work, or grease, toppled off the winning carried out for two reasons (1) to- certain beam in the direction of dressed in such a manner as to in-car into the arms of Slim, a bony, obtain a surface polish on all the travel. Each car had to carry dicate that he had just been doing elongated American with a batter-working parts and (2) to scour lights; they might be oll lamps or useful work, had to flee or goed cow-puncher face that only the crankcase of all impurities. acetyleno Ights, but, they were down before their blows,

mother could have loved, and they The second purpose is achieved certainly not electric, for that The winner of the previous race, gripped hands.

by the simple method of lubricat- Juxury had not been applied to a Frenchman, and agent for a

"You two fellows sure ran a fine ing the engine from the "main," automobiles in those days. Tail famous French car, tried to prove lights then had a habit of going his identity, and in painful and race; come and have a drink," rather than from its own crank- out, to the disgust of drivers and voluble English to explain his said the race promoter to the two case. A supply tank containing the apparent delight of an official reason for being present. A derelict-looking beings who had hundreds of gallons of oil is con- with a yellow flag who rushed out hefty awing from a Pinkerton just set up a local record by 'cover- nected to the engine pump and the at the imminent peril of his life man's staff brought his discourse ing rather more than 900 miles lubricant then follows its usual and endeavoured to bring the de- to an abrunt ending. When the in twenty-four hours. linquent to a standstill.. cordon reached the end of the Seld “Guess we'd rather have the

Will any driver stop because the hunted group in front of it dough," exclaimed Slim. Fred Wagner is waving a fling at made a wild 'dash across the track, him7 They know something of at imminent danger of being hit "Wag's" power of invective, and by passing cars, to the safety of It is because they know that they the grandstands. The casualties prefer to swing around him, miss limped over as they returned to ing him by a hair's-breadth, consciousness. singeing him with their open In the evening, after twenty exhausts, hoping. that the hours' running, it began to rain mechanic spread-eagled on the vigorously. One by one the Tony and me? bare chassis, his toes around the drivers ran for waterproofs and dred dollars coming to us, ain't automobiles in the United States frame members and his elbows tyre chains, and to throw their there? And we kinder feel we'd last year, according to the Ameri within half an inch of the driving goggles away, for the dirt surface like ter see them, yellow back afore can Motorists' Association. "=" chains, will succeed in lighting on which all had been sprayed at we takes the war paint, off?" - ** the lamp before the next round. Intervals during the race was Perhaps there was a glint of fire! moter expectorated deliberately, He succeeds: but a quarter of quickly transformed into a black, in Slim's eye; perhaps there was drawled forth "O, you birds surs an hour later the light has again cozy masa liko that on harbour something in the set, of his make me tired," then, slipping his falled, and Wagner, with his bottoms at low tide, with a per-shoulders, or perhaps it was only, hand into his hip pocket, he count

the recollection of a little financial ed out the yellow backs, there, in much-abhorrea, flag, bsa triumph- centage of, glue added.

"Sure thing," echoed Tony. The race promoter so far forgot himself as to let his cigar stump drop from between his teeth.

course, finally draining out from the bottom of the crankcase. There is thus a continuous flow of fresh, cool oil which removes all impuri ties in Its passage through the engine.

AUTO DEATH DATA.

"What? Whatchersay ""

A total of 124 · persons . "We won, the race, ain't we,

There's five hun- killed by each 100,000 registered

ed in bringing the car to a stand- Men armed with rakes tried to unpleasantness after an earlier the persistent, relentless rai still. Running into the pits, the even out the surface on the bonds. race-whatever it was, the pro- The Autocar.

were