Out and Home.—By " The Extractor."
Page 13
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By Bus to the Derby.
The last time I went down to the Derby must have been back in the dark ages. Anyway I drove down, but my vehicle was a low Ralli cart with a fast mare, and very "doggy" I thought it looked at the time. I could not help contrasting this with the now popular way of reaching Epsom at race times. I formed one of a. party which together with the comestibles filled up two Daimler buses last week. This was really a demonstr'ation of the new Smith carburetter with which the engine was fitted. Derby Day was happily selected by Smith's of the Strand because it is an " off " day in town for newspaper men—an air of mystery surrounding every office as to when the principal will return. So they considered that such a traffic test of their carburetter would be convincing, and I must say the smooth running and the acceleration of those engines were extraordinary, one's chief regret being that some other man was in charge of the wheel. One little breakdown occurred a short distance from the Downs. The aluminium bracket holding the fan of one of the engines broke, the fan fouled the radiator and they lost their water. The other half of the nasty and some hampers promptly boarded our bus and we proceeded. In less than an hour the derelict joined us on the course, the fan having been abandoned and the pipes plugged with wood. The reason I mention this is that on the return journey that bus did its share of the work without a fan, climbing the rises at a rare speed and passing taxicabs quite easily without further attention and showing no signs of overheating. So the earhuration must have been perfect, it was quite evident. The Smith has been adopted as standard already by several pleasure car concerns, and the Daimler Co., Ltd., has made sonic exhaustive and satisfactory tests with commercial vehicles. We shall return to this subject in next week's issue, and hope to give some illustrations and detailed description concerning it. From what I am told by some of my technical friends its construction is interesting.
Churchill of Hall's.
If I were asked the distinguishing characteristic of Mr. Frank Churchill, of J. and E. Ball, Ltd., I should, without any desire to make a play upon words, declare for frankness. I have known him
for many years in periods of rain and shine, and he seems essentially of that type who rapidly gains one's confidence and one's sympathy, and retains it. Ile founded, of course, Durham Churchill and Co., of Sheffield, going through the pioneer struggles and experiencing, as I have before written on tins page, the cruellest of bad fortune in the 1908 R.A.C. Trials_ That is, however, all put behind him ; the kaleidoscope has had many a fortunate twist since then, and, happily, he is now to be counted amongst the successes. I have had opportunities for judging that ; when he took charge of the Hallford business, it had barely got a foothold ; now there is a substantial home trade and regular shipments of vehicles to Australia, India, Nigeria, Jamaica, Singapore, and other countries. " There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." Most of us remember with pride some particular stroke of business which proved a turning point, and in reply to my query, Churchill recalls with a glow of pleasure a particular order snatched from the jaws of a powerful competitor. It seemed to be lost until he went down personally and opened all his batteries upon it. This particular order gathered others in on the principle of the snowball, anctlio counts orders for 42 vehicles as the result of that special effort. If a man who has great re sponsibilities has to keep a level head he is supposed to have some hobby apart from business, but here we have Churchill as a breathing contradiction to this. He plays no golf., he doesn't even indulge in gardening, he is, by the way, a teetotaler, but, different perhaps to some of that ilk, he is a bright, entertaining, hopeful person, with a keen outview of the humorous side of things. This combination of qualities gains Churchill a welcome and has helped greatly to put the Hallford vehicles in the front rank of the industry.