The Provincial Repair Shop.
Page 2
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The real requirements of the commercial-motor vehicle, in all its various types, in the matters of maintenance and housing, are, in reality, only just fully becoming patent to many interested people in the provinces and overseas. This, of course, does imply mply that there are not. many enlightened people who, with particularly keen insight, have been quick to appreciate the filet that methods, which are more or less sufficient to satisfy the owner of a pleasure car, are, more often than not, inadequate for the economical and proper employment of machines for business purposes. Evidence of this rapidly-increasing appreciation of the particular problems which are before us continue to reach us from all quarters, and especially from the provinces and from great centres overseas. In the Metropolis, perhaps, things have gone much further, and a similar state of affairs exists, we hear from our correspondents, in France, Germany and America.
In the near future, owners and maintenance contractors, elsewhere than in the Metropolis, will be confronted with the problem of the establishment of proper depots, well and specifically equipped for the use of the commercial-motor vehicle. The response with which the night-shelter propaganda of the C.M.U.A. has met in many of the big provincial centres is reliable indication of the growth of intelligent interest in the subject of which we are writing. It cannot, however, be denied that, scattered all
over the country, there are numberless so-called garages, and still more ill-described repair shops, the organization of which is totally inadequate tor the requirements of the commercial-motor. vehicle. It must not be imagined that these requirements are much more complex than those pertaining to the touring car a the private owner, but they are more exacting. It must be remembered that the owner of the commercial-motor vehicle buys his machine in order that he may make some profit direct or indirect in connection with his business. He, therefore, must get the best out of his machine, and, to do this, he must have proper facilities in respect of repair plant and maintenance organization, and he must not be asked to pay unduly for them. In many cases, it. has been sufficient, in respect of the pleasure car, for an owner of a small and .very amateurish bicycle-repair shop to erect a prominent signboard in declaration of his readiness to undertake anything in the nature of repairs or reconstruction to touring cars of all types, in spite of the fact that his knowledge of most of such machines is almost imperceptible. A display of empty petrol cans, and a few dummy oil packages, in a small shop window, has far too frequently in the past served to justify the erection of a notice to the effect that the premises upon which such display is made are " motor works." These methods will not do for the commercial motor. The men who handle the repairs and maintenance must know their job. There are plenty of them in embryo all over the country, and there will be an increasing demand for their services as people realize the necessity for proper mechanical knowledge in respect of the men who have to look
• after the machines.
In our last two issues we have given considerable space to the publication of information concerning the requirements of properly-equipped garages, and useful selections of tools and plant have been outlined. We shall not. neglect in the future, week by week, to give a requisite amount of attention to this increasing branch of the industry's activities, realizing that the man who considers that he will be enabled properly to serve the industry with no more knowledge than that which he has gathered from the tinkering of an occasional motor-bicycle, will rightly receive short shrift from the many owners of industrial machines who themselves are rapidly becoming experts with regard to them.