Prospects for Private-car Chassis.
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Criteria of Cost and Life Must Replace Those of Speed and Comfort.
The considered article dealing with adapted chassis, which article appeared in our issue of a fortnight ago, has caused, we are informed, not inconsiderable heartburnings amongst some makers of private cars who have wished to carry commercial motoring by assault—possibly in keeping with the military beliefs of the Germans concerning shock tactics. Makers from the private-car side will find themselves under the immediate necessity to conduct their attack wtth due regard for existing practices of those who know the utility-motor world. No one assault will bring the business which they seek : they must be prepared for a campaign ; they must dispose and apply their forces in relation to the hardly-bought experience of established commercial-vehicle makers.
We have, naturally, no desire to discourage the, advent of manufacturers as newcomers on the side of the industry with which we have for so many years been identified, and concerning the requirements of which we may properly claim to be adequately informed, but we have, on numerous occasions in past years, when discussing the conditions of success in the motorvan business, pointed out that those conditions differ fundamentally from comparable factors on the sales side of the private-car trade.
Economical Limits for Pneumatic Tires.
A private, owner buys a motorcar for pleasure, recreational or professional uses, and does not, in very many instances, allow the cost per mile run to affect his decision materially ; a balance-sheet is seldom got out by the private purchaser, whereas each and every item is tested in relation to return by the business
owner The benefits of pneumatic tires are carefully weighed against the extent to which they figure in the expenditure account, and we have good reasons for knowing that some of the keenest advocates of commercial motors, who. experimented for a term of years with hopes of making a success of one-ton vans on pneumatic tires, were forced, directly against their own inclinations, to give up that ideal. If was, of course, quite possible to keep such a.van tired with pneumatics, but absolutely at costs per mile which were prohibitive. We might particularly refer any readers who think otherwise to, for example, Mr. H. G. Burford, as he was one of the most prominent men in the industry who applied himself to the problem of successfully employing Pneumatic tires under inanimate loads of one ton net. We have no doubt that Mr. Burford will endorse our own published statement, that the dividing line between economy and inadmissible expense, so far as pneumatics are concerned on the commercial side of the industry, is
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usually found to be a net load of 12 cwt. There are clearly exceptions, where speed is worth 2d. or 3d. per mile, and the urgent delivery of daily newspapers at points distant some 60 or more miles from the printing-house is one instance which we have in. mind. The exigencies of to-day's situation, due to the war, may undoubtedly introduce a few new sets of circumstances in which the pneumatic tire will be admitted to commercial use for loads above 12 cwt., but they will merelyoorovide the exceptions which will demonstrate the reality of the usual commercial limit which we have stated.
The Creation of New Openings.
.The problem for newcomers, who seek to transfer quickly froin the private-car branch to the commercialvehicle branch, and who muet, therefore completely alter the basis and class of their selling arguments, is this How to create new openings. The salesman who is accustomed to persuade the private buyer that a particular CEir is the best, or that it is one which merits the buyingOas of late years been obliged increasingly to rely upon attractive points in the bodywork. So many chassis are equally good, and well proved by reputation throughout the country, so far as mechanical and controydetails go, that the salesman, apart from the shibboleth of "fitted with Bosch ignition," has in seven cases out of ten, and particularly when dealing with womenfolk, treated the chassis and costs of running as completely subordinate to comfort of bodywork.
Drastic Changes in Sales Methods Become Necessary.
The sales organization on the private-car side has now to turn round, to be metamorphosed and turned inside out, in so far as it wishes to cultivate orders on the commercial side, and even then to serve an apprenticeship. Salesmen must talk costs and length of life ; they must prePare to build up towards "the day" when they can produce references to satisfied users, if they wish to zget ahead in the end. Tenacity most he their watchiiord. With few if any of their chassis yet employed by shopkeepers, tradesmen, or other commercial users, the difficulties of the situation. will require to be tackled with a stout heart, except in so far as private-car manufacturers are able to create a, new demand in directions which have certainly not asserted themselves as open to the commercial-vehicle maker in earlieraperiods. Can these be created or found ? We cannot pretena that there is any royal road to success. No manufacturer of commercial vehicles has, hitherto, been able to make headway untilehe wasUble to give references to satisfied users, and his earliest orders have literally been bought, not by bribery or corruption, but by allowances, concessions, and following-up. The newcomer will not get forward, unless he is prepared to give guarantees, alike of service and of maximum cost per mile.
Cumulative Maintenance: Unavoidable Depreciation.
Scores of uses for light vans, parcelears and motorcycle carriers will undoubtedly be developed, but not in any great hurry. Here, again, the determining factor will be cost in relation to performance. Whereas the individual private owner does not usually take into his yearly reckoning the incidence of depreciation, the purchaser for trade use knows full well that his 'outgo is not measured only by fuel, lubricants and tires. He realizes that mechanical maintenance is a charge which steadily and surely mounts up pan i pagett as the mileage, and that a depreciation fund has also to be provided: Proposals for the adoption of light vehicles are in many cases thoroughly sound, but in no case so without a frank admission that a life of five. years for such a vehicle has yet to be proved capable of achievement when it is used in house-to-house delivery work or other commercial employment, day in day out.
It is, as we very definitely asserted in our article of two weeks ago, the "life " of adapted chassis that will very largely prove the determining factor for incoming vehicles. We wish them well ; our desire is to help and to warn those who introduce them. The Right Class of Driver.
Vehicles of the light-ear type are invariably fittet with pneumatic tires, and one qualification of their drivers must be competence to repair them when punctures or other troubles occur, and to do so on the road. Purchasers will therefore be studying their own interests if they make sure, before engaging a driver for a pneumatic-tired cycle carrier, parcelear or light van, that the man is able to do ordinary tire repairs properly, and is not likely to allow a puncture to lead to worse damage through neglect. Spare wheels can in many instances be carried, we know, but they are again a source of expense if the work cannot be done by the driver himself and has to be sent out.
Two Insistent Points.
We repeat, with all emphasis, our advice to new buyers. If they are ordering a new vehicle with a load capacity in excess of 12 cwt., and are not prepared to accept an uncertainty which may be stated to resiide either side of 2d. per mile run, they will do well to insist on having vehicles which are not only fitted with " solid-indiarubber tires, but which are primarily designed to run upon them. The replacement of pneumatic tires by solid-rubber tires, on a chassis which has done very well on the former, is possibly the surest way of piling up both big repair bills and big depreciation accounts, after the first two years—or less—of regular use in commercial service. The second point, applicable to many light cars which are about to masquerade as light vans, is that estimates of working load-capacity often need halving.