From Our Australian Correspondent.
Page 12
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
An Arrol-Johnston Load.
I am sending this week a photo:graph of an Arrol-Johnston lorry carrying a load of wool. Most of the -wool pressing in Sydney is effected at a suburb off the railway called Botany, -and the wool has to be carried to and iro by road. Huge teams are used for the purpose, and these are both very slow and costly. Messrs. Angus and Lou, the agents, are particularly _proud in being the first to put a motor lorry to this work.
More Spare Parts Wanted.
Another point which occurs to me :is the matter of spare' parts, and here, too, I think a few words of advice from the manufacturer, if they were tendered in the shape of a circular letter, -would be welcomed. I have the good iortune to meet, from time to time, .certain users of commercial vehicles, . and to have the pleasure of a chat 'with them over th4 merits and deanerits of their respective cars, and I lave recently heard one of the best local agents reviled because he has not varried spare parts that were needed, and I have no hesitation in saying that the particular spare parts that were needed were just some of those which lie did not anticipate would be re,quired. Most of the local agents have had previous experience with pleasure cars, they have been in the habit of . --stocking a limited supply of ' spares," :and also, as it was found to cost practically no more than importing them, of getting renewal parts made locally. It is difficult for these people to realize :that parts which may be regarded as squite unimportant for touring cars are -most important for commercial vehi-des, and that the owners of the latter cannot afford to be kept waiting while they are either imported or made locally. By the time duty and carriage are paid, quite a large amount of capital may easily be locked up in a stock of spare parts, and manufacturers should undoubtedly do what they can to assist their agents in this respect. This is a matter to which I have referred before, and the need is as great to-day as it was then.
" Fresh' Loads.
At the present time, a most-extraordinary and, to me, amusing rivalry is proceeding between some of the agents for commercial vehicles in Sydney. I should probably not refer to it, if I did not fear that it might end in a more-or-less-serious setback to the movement. It consists in giving what I may perhaps term " freak " trial runs. These consist either in covering a given amount of ground in a remarkably-short space of time, or else in hauling some extraordinary load between two points or up some lull. A certain section of Press representatives who " does " the motoring celumn of the daily papers usually attends, and in due course goes into raptures in the columns of his particular journal. Matters of safety, speed limits, economic working, etc., are all thrown to the winds, and the idea is to give a trial run that differs from any given by competitors, and to get oneself talked about. In one of these, for instance, a car was provided with a load some 25 per cent, in excess of the maximum laid down by the manufacturers, and taken in the presence of an admiring crowd to ascend a fairly-steep hill in the neighbourhood of Sydney. After managing that very successfully, all the admirers were invited to mount the vehicle to have their photographs taken free, and were then given a trip up the hi'l, so
that on this particular journey the vehicle, carrying 20 passengers in addition to its load, had about twice as much on board as it should have done. This -' marvellous feat" was duly reported and eulogised in the daily Press, with the result that a number of owners or buyers would probably see no reason why they should not treat their own vehicles similarly whenever convenient. They would, of course, argue that, if the agents who ought to know do it, why should not they ?
"Freak" Speeds.
Another feat is to take a three-ton or four-ton rubber-tired chassis, to fit it with a lorry body, and then to set it to carry a load between two points as fast as it can possibly be driven, with the result that a somewhat-extraordinary sight may he seen en occasion of a somewhat-bulky load of three or four tons being driven at a speed of 18 or 20 miles an hour along some flat road in one or another of the suburbs. This trial would probably be undertaken for some firm which has a depot, and a speed uf 18 miles an hour might enable the journey to be done in, say, 20 minutes, whilst horses would probably have taken between 80 and 90 minutes, and the proper speed for the motor would probably have been 40 or 4.5 minutes. The man buys the motor, feels proud of the run in 20 minutes, and emulates it on every possible occasion, with the results that his tires are soon worn out and his vehicle in the repair shop. Plenty will he heard on the subject of the unreliable motor lorry, I fear, instead of the unreliable agent.
The Agent Difficulty.
It is, of course, true that there is a certain class in the motor trade everywhere which fondly believes that it knows far more than the manufacturer himself, and these people can be taught nothing. Fortunately, this section is comparatively small. There is another section which is only prepared to listen to advice from the menufacturer, and I would recomn-end manufacturers to keep in the closestpossible touch with their respective agents out here, and to use every endeavour to guide them in the straight and narrow way. If the dangers of overloading are pointed out by the manufacturers in a circular letter, and if hints are given as to what is the most-economic speed at which to run, I am confident that it will bear fruit. To some extent, all this has had to be learnt in England, where the manufacturer was close at hand and could put in a word here and there. In the same way, it will have to be learnt here, but manufacturers could de much by an occasional word in seasor to guide their representatives