WHAT A CONTRAST!
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A Comparison with the Commercial Motor Conditions of 1905.
By Henry Stariney.
IT was really a very bold thing for the proprietors of The Commercial Motor to start a journal specially in the interests of the commercial vehicle 21 years ago,
when there were very few commercial vehicles on the road, and the practical makes could be numbered on the fingers of one hand—although, perhaps, hardly so bold as when I started the first motoring paper whilst we were yet under the domination of the man-with-the red-flag regulations. That the venture was justified is amply demonstrated by the special number of the paper which is issued to-day, and by the really marvellous development which the vehicle it caters for has achieved since its inception.
It was, indeed, only a few years before that Engineers —Engineers with a big "B," Mr. Printer, please !—had given it as their considered opinion that the idea of mounting even a 2 h.p. internal-combustion motor on springs, instead of upon a solid bed, was absurd, impractical and chimerical, and that any attempt to do so 'would—could--only result in the vehicle and the engine knocking themselves to bits in a very short time. But the " foolish " amateur engineers and so-called " crank§ " had altered all that by the time the G.M. made its appearance, and the early motor companies, having succeeded in producing " pleasure " cars which would run with some amount of satisfaction, were turning their attention to the'requirements of Industry and endeavouring to persuade a hesitating commercial corn-. munity Mitt cars, as, such, were practical for commercial purposes.
To be perfectly candid, however, it must he admitted that few of -the cars sold, for commercial purposes in those days were all _that. their enthusiastic producers desired—and in some cases fondly believed—them to be, . particularly..:in the direction of 'reliability. But this,can hardly be wondered at where many,: if, indeed, not most, of them were concerned, because the requirements of the commercial vehicle were but little understood. By many manufacturers in those days, who tried to cater for the commercial vehicle trade, it was considered sufficient alteration to the touring car chassis if stiffer springs were fitted, the gear lowered and the wheels shod with solid-rubber tyres, and it is hardly surprising to commercial car engineers of to-day that such machines failed lamentably—indeed, it would have been surprising if they had done anything else. Yet it was not at all infrequent to hear makers complain bitterly at the " unreasonable" attitude of customers, who were more than annoyed when their vans "broke down" ten miles from anywhere, and either had to be towed home or limped in disconsolately at 2 or 3 o'clock In the morning.
Business men did not—and do not to-day—buy vans for the fun of the thing, but when buying a vehicle for business purposes they expected it to be able, as the Yankees used to say, to "get them there and back again." As one man put it to me, "I'm a motorist myself, and. when I buy a 'car for my own driving I'm content to tinker with it if it goes wrong, and count It all in the day's fun. But when I buy a car for business purposes, there's no fun about it, and I can't afford to have my business delayed and interfered with by breakdowns." This attitude Was often called " prejudice " by the makers and agents of those days: but it was not. It was just business, and that was all.
The failures of those " converted " touring car chassis about that time led other makers to go to the opposite extreme. Recognizing, as the result of experience— their own .and others'—that something better was needed for commercial work, they redesigned the machine from A to Z, making the mistake, however, of imagining that weight meant strength, with the result that their chassis built for commercial purposes were of truly elephantine proportions and correspondingly heavy, so that not only were their carrying powers greatly restricted, but they knocked themselves to pieces by their own weight. I remember seeing one of these giants—I think it was only a 3-tonner—in which the gearbox was about as large as a big man's body, and it would be an extremely interesting comparison if one of those old chassis could be shown at the next Commercial Vehicle Show alongside a modern chassis for dealing with the same loads. The difference would be a striking illustration of the enormous strides which have been made by the commercial vehicle industry during the past two decades.
In those days, too, the work of the salesman and agent was hard and difficult, yet full of interest. Whilst to-day, with the customer, it resolves itself into the question of "which? "—in those days, "To be, or not to be?" was the question, and, unsatisfaCtory as horses were in many respects, the business man at least knew their shortcomings and how to overcome them, whereas he knew nothing of motors or their idiosyncrasies, so it was not altogether to be wondered at that he hesitated to plunge into the unknown.
In no direction does the difference between then and now stand out so clearly as in that which exists in the large passenger vehicle. In those days the char-abancs—other than the horse-drawn type—was unknown and few passenger cars were built to carry more than six .to eight people. For parties the wagonette type of body was .used.
Who would have thought, in those days, of seeing the huge and luxuriously furnished coaches and omnibuses, which carry .their big loads of passengers in comfort to-day. In which respect we have long since passed the ideal set by a Penzance livery stable keeper in 1898, when, after reaching Land's End on my pioneer drive from John o' Groat's, he accompanied me out of the town with a fast-trotting mare, and when we parted inquired when I would be coming down that way again, concluding with the injunction, "Well, when you do, bring down one that will take 32 people—mind, 32 people—up these here hills, and I'll have one." His requirement could not be met then, nor for a number of years afterwards, but the post-war commercial motor vehicle builder has solved the problem—and solved it with striking success.