Concerning /Viotorcabs.
Page 13
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By Henry Sturmey.
Inc who has given die questiou id anent-cabs serious and caieful mechanical consideration, the vat. ii phases which the movement has taken are distiuirr illIelCstIfl .1:1(1 instructive. Particularly is this the caee in regard to the type of vehicle employed. The motorcab movement, as most people know, commenced in Paris before it (-aught on ith us, and what was the result? The neat twoseated two-cylindered Renaults-it trifle under-pawered, perhapscaught on to such an extent that other people started motorcabs, and other in endeavoured to secure seine of this trade,As was only to be expected \\ here pleasure-car manufacturers were finding a falling off Ill demand for their productions, the meturcab appeared to open a new outlet for their activities, and, without further consideration of the question, they concluded den, if the public would patronise the handy little \ eh jell!, ;11 re;(d theV would be still more ready to patronise theirs if of a more pretentious order, on the basis, I presume, that people, and French people in particular, like display, and would prefer to be seen in a large car than in it little one, to say nothingof the greater speed secured by the greater power.
So the makers introduced four-cylindered ei4.,,ines as a " going one better " than the two of the Renault, and, not conttnt with this, kept adding to the power, until we saw 3oh.p. ears installed as " cabs," and all rushing wildly through the streets with little regard for the people's safety : anyone who visits Paris to-day will quickly appreciate this. It was recently recorded by a French correspondent that a twelvemonth's use of such vehicles soon showed the totally unsuitable character of them, when the cab question, considered as a commercial proposition, is under review. Multicylinder engines with large power meant heavier fuel consumption and large tire upkeep, to say nothing of the greater complication : more parts to go wrong, end more carsto be taken of them. The taximeter, of course, dews not differentiate between the big vehicle and the little one, but requires that each shall run for the same money. So the French cab owners have discovered—as anyone seriously considering the question could have told them would be the case– that multi-cylinder engines of large power and heavy bodies cannot be worked at a profit in the motortatb trade, and, :ts a result, so the correspondent in question informed me, the tendency amongst the French cab buyers I1t1W Is to 1-1.1S11 to the opposite extreme, to tetb:›o the four-cylindered cneine, and to give consideration to the single-uslindered engine, which they would not even look at for a moment before. In fart, in Paris to-day, the single-cvlindered and double-cylindered cars are the only ones which are holding their end up," and which are likely to survive. -When we come ewer to this side of the Channel, we see almostexactly tile same development taking place; the latter development-, the inevitable turn of the tide, has not \ et begun, but the pleasure-car makers, with chassis to sell, are vigorously pushing the idea of larger vehicles, greater power and more cylinders, with a result which can, T think, only be disastrous to those employing them, for the simple reason that, as above indicated, such vehicles cannot be run at it profit at current motorcab rates.
It is a. totally different thing, of course, where a..!t:hhiflt2". bw,h-R-.:-s is in question, :led where cars are kept for hiring-nut purposes. This class of business is as distinct front the motoreab business ;is it is from purely private work. and the two propositions are not on the same level. The inouwenh is, from first to last, a commercial proposition, and ultimately the upkeep bill is the factor which will tieride the question of success or failure. This upkeep question is controlled iare-ely, nay, almost entirely, by the simplicity or otherwise of the vehicle, but rector manufacturers, with chasis to sell, ignore this fact to-day. A dozen firms are offering the cab-buying public cabs with four-cylindered engines, on the ground that they are " going one Ian or " than " the other fellow," and cab buyers are being persuaded to inircha,e them. lie nee. where one eat-) owner has started with a four-cvlindered expensive vehicle in idly particular locality, ethers have felt compelled to fuhiaw -mt. al: hough themselves convinced of the greater probability ot ciimmercial success with Lill' simpler and stronger \Thiele. Many of the two-cylindered cabs on the London streets to-day are tinder-powered, and thus not so suitable for use in pros-inetai towns as over the level streets of the Metropolis, but this points to the need for larger cylinders, rather than for eny practical call for more of them.
Now, I find this is going on all over the country, and the
cab-buying public are being to take what, according to my own judgment and to advices from others, must ultimately help to militate against financial success. And experience in this country, where experience has been had, is exactly on all fours with that already recorded as having been MCI with in Paris, and this, too, bears out to the full the views of those who have considered the cab question front its commercial aspect. To relate some of these experiences will, perhaps, be interesting and, at the present juncture, of value. Thus, for example, there is a firm in Inaulon, representing a well-known French house, which has supplied a large number of cabs for use in the London streets. It supplies both two-cylindered and four-cylindered vehicles, and, as it gets a little more profit out of the latter, it would naturally be taken that it would be in favour of pushing these. Rut this firm has studied the question, and its advice isc.onstantly in favour of the simpler model. Yet the manager of it informed me, a few days since, that, in spite of his advice, a number of cab buyers had insisted on taking the more complicated model, with the result that they now find exactly what he told them, and very much wish they had taken his advice in the first place, and invested in the simpler vehicle. Then, again, I am told on the good authority of a large firm of cab users in London which has, in addition to a large fleet of two-cylindered cabs, a considerable number of four-cylindered ones in use, that, now that the drivers have had experience of them, they simply refuse to take out the four-cylindered vehicles, so long as there is a two-cylindered cab in the garage, and, when this is not the case, many of them even go so far as to refuse to take out a cab at all, leaving the four-cylindered tales standing in the yard! And yet another instance : this time in a provincial city. Edinburgh, which is -just now being exploited by the Provincial Cab Company, is not new to the motoreab. An established firm of jobniasters there has had a number of four-cylindered taxies of it well-known make on the streets during the past season, and, in an interview, I recently learnt from the manager of this concern that, whatever additions his firm might: feel disposed ultimately to make to its Ilecr, of one thing he was COM1111, and that was, that " /hey .:ce it not he four-eylindered vehicics.•' These instances can all be substantiated at any time by interested enquirers, and they tell their own tale. Vet, the campaign in favour of the four-cylindered vehicles is being carried on for all it is wte-th, and cab buyers, are being persuaded to take what—in light of ihe experiences alluded to here and in Paris--must ultimately prove unsuitable vehicles. If those who are contemplating embarking en the running of motorcabs will recognise the fact that the motorcab proposition is a commercial proposition from first to last, and that simplicity rather than complication spells success, or is more likely to anyway, thee will be acting in heir own best interests, and saving themselves from possible, and, indeed, very probable failure.