SIR HERBERT AUSTIN'S OPINIONS ON THE INDUSTRY'
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WHEN introducing the new range of VY. Austin private cars to a gathering of agents at the Longbridge Works last Monday, Sir Herbert Austin, K.B.E., made some remarks which are also applicable to the commercialvehicle business. In particular he decried the fetish of " change for change's sake," which causes market disturbances and puts a fictitiously low value on second-hand vehicles, also the use of purchasers as a medium for testing innovations which have not reached a practical stage of development. Sales of all classes of vehicle had shown an increase of 28 per cent. in the home market and 29 per cent. in exports.
Sir Herbert looks upon the interesting Hayes friction gear as the ideal form of automatic transmission, and an improvement in its control is the use of a single lever on the steering column. We would be interested to see a gear of this type tried out on a commercial vehicle; at present, however, it is provided on the large Austin cars only at an extra cost pf £50.
In alluding to the state of the automobile industry Sir Herbert referred to the 1,250,000 workers who are engaged in the manufacture, sale, repair and operation of motor vehicles, and mentioned that this is the second largest group of workers in the country, which is surpassed only by the distributive trades, and he looked forward to a considerable expansion in the next twelve months. The average number of employees at the Austin works during the past year was 18,500, but sometimes the total had risen to 20,000.
Referring to the sales of Austin vans Sir Herbert said that they did not show the high percentage of advance which their suitabilitY and value warrant. This, he considered, was due to the regrettable apathy of some agents towards commercialvehicle business. It is too often considered a " side line," yet 20,000 commercial vehicles in the same categories as the Austin models were sold in Britain last year, and the market warrants more than spasmodic sales efforts.