ABSENCE OF OBSOLESCENCE IN WAR-TIME.
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Its Rapid Return in Peace Conditions and the Need for Great Replacements.
ALL THE OLD ACCEPTED standards of so many conditions of our existence have utterly gone by the wall. War brings with it extremes of success and failure ; it sets arbitrary extremes of value there are few halfway houses. One instance of this is the great diversity in the depreciation which may rightly be assumed to have taken place in the value of a number of nonconsumable supplies. In the ease of the motor vehicle, those which have been found to be fit, or to be adaptable for war-time purposes, have been -irsed under such conditions of hard and rough service, and with not always the best of help in charge, that their depreciation has been on a scale very considerably in excess of that thought acceptable in peace time. This is true of almost all commercial vehicles, for it has been difficult in the extreme to secure spare parts from manufacturers, and many makeshifts and expedients of one kind or another have inevitably had to be resorted to.
When we come to consider the touring car, however, we find that, while similar conditions.prevail amongst those for which opportunity for war-time service has been found, on the other hand for a period approaching -four years very large numbers of such cars and motor-bicycles not so employed have been little used.
On the whole, obsolescence enters into the account% very little in connection with motor vehicles of any sort during these war years. Types have but little altered, new designs have bsen rare. At the present time, there are very large numbers of current models of touring-car chassis standing by throughout the country, which the owners have not had the permission, had they the desire, to use. Cars of four years old, subject to certain exceptions, are but little more depreciated in a great number of cases than if they had suffered one year's peace time hard wear, nor have they "obsolesced." Turning again to the commercial-vehicle industry we find that in the four years in question, industrial vehicles of all types have generally depreciated from 25 to 50 per cent. in excess of what would have happened to them had the conditions been no more arduous than in normal times.
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All this will have a very remarkable bearing on post-war factory activities. The new ranges of touring-car models which will ultimately take the place of those in existence now and which, for the most part, have been current for the past three or four years, will most certainly show differences, or, at any rate, modifications in design far in excess of the changes which might have been anticipated from' year to year at the speed of construction which had been reached all round in 1914. Obsolescence will then once again come into its own with a bound, and cars which will have suffered little depreciation, although remaining useful, will become obsolete very rapidly. Fashions counts little in the commercialvehicle world, although it has its say to a certain extent. The depreciation will have proved the great factor.
The lesson in both cases is that, for entirely different reasons, the need for replacement in both the commercial-vehicle and touring-car branches of the industry will be enormous. The demand for output for home purposes alone is likely to be a very large one, and provided the Government affords the necessary legislative efieouragement, it should be equally encouraging so far as overseas markets are concerned. The touring. car proper is rapidly earning for itself an industrial status. It is much more used, and will continue to be so used for business purposes rather than for joy riding. Effective reconstruction will largely depend in au auxiliary way on the proper aid of motor transport of every kind. There will certainly be plenty of business to be done in the motor vehicle factories when war activities cease. If the war-returned chassis does not prove to be .4,9 serious a menace by the manner of its return being' mishandled, and if effective efforts are made to secure early supplies of raw material, and if factories be aided quickly to shed their munition equipment and to replace it with modern industrial plant, the motor industry should be amongst the first to get on to its feet, and particularly the greatly augmented commercial side of it, amongst which we include what, in many cases, may be called the touring car, or, to give it a more accurate term, tho service ear.