Olympia Reflections.
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"There is not enough commercial-motor trade to keep a single works occupied," commented a well-known member of the industry about 21 years ago. That was a dismal view to take, and we said so at the time. Now, with the private-car Show holding everybody's attention by reason of its brilliant success, can we not present some parallel of encouragement to cheer those members of the industry who have engaged their capital and pledged their energies to the heavy aide. The outstanding difference between the conditions of sale to private, and to business customers is this: the former class, as a whole, buys to gain recreational facilities for which it is prepared to be materially out of packet; the latter, oonsidered generically, wants its purchases to prove money-earning instruments of commercial advancement. There has been no London show of commercial motors since March, 1908: there will not be one until early in 1911. Does this forebode disaster, or a retrograde tendency ? Let us look into facts. The earliest all-motor shows were financially unsuccessful. It is but little more than 10 years ago, that the displays at the Agricultural Hall and Richmond attracted nobody beyond a limited band of enthusiasts. The later exhibitions, however, within four years, gave evidencesboth internal and external—of what has been seen at Olympia since the S.M.M.T. made its meteoric debut there in February of 1905. Public interest and support has never looked back. Why ? Yes, why is the " gate" so large, and why are there so many new buyers, compared with the commercial-vehicle Show of 1908? We find the answer without difficulty. The fundamental difference named above compels the slower accretion of business in the heavy branches ; hence, until the turning-point is reached as regards numbers of satisfied users, nothing comparable with the widespread public interest in the private-car Show can bring about a like augmentation of attendances. We are glad to know, in spite of the overshadowing influences of the November shows, that we may assert, without fear of genuine contradiction, that there is rapidly being created, in this country and abroad, a real sense of confidence and solidarity in respect of the commercial-motor movement. Conversion and conviction have been slow to come, but they have surely arrived. The rate face of the trading community will be—and very shortly, too—as complete and sudden as was Society's recognition of the motorcar. The acknowledgment has merely been a harder one to secure, and the writer, who has been "in the fray " for many years longer than most believers in the commercial motor, is naturally gratified to observe indications of an imminent step into another era. Have we not gone through those of speculation, expere
ment„ probationary trial and selective use? That of general application is both due and upon us.
Olympia shows of private cars have had degrees of success marked by those of the cars' own capacity for performance, and ability to sell sister vehicles by their running and service behaviour. The prattle of the motorcar salesman did not carry the industry very far : it was reliability on the road which actually effected the enormous increases of business in the years 1908 to 1907, after which a pause in absorption caused temporary indigestion. A like period of activity is bound to come to waiting makers of utility vehicles and tractors: no flaw vitiates the analogy. Commercial motors are, at last, beginning to sell themselves with a measure of regularity; new purchasers are found with relative ease; there are a score of irrefutable arguments to doge a deal when the maker gets into touch with them. By the time the 1911 Show of commercial motors is upon us, we shall be able worthily to sustain claims at which ignorant critics have in past years looked askance, and to insure a large attendance of users and prospective users. The task of creating a nucleus has already given place to the cultivation and extension of existing bodies of adherents, and 16 months from to-day will see the less-interesting, though more-substantial, commercial section well in the ascendant. The fact that depreciation can now safely be reckoned as a mileage charge, instead of at the rate of so much per annum irrespective of mileage, will prove one of the great factors of acceleration in the change from horse to motor.
Finally, the presence of so many foreign visitors at Olympia this month, which is due to the want of any similar show either at Berlin or Paris, reminds us of export trade. This is the particular and bright star of the manufacturers of vans, lorries, public-service vehicles fireengines, agricultural motors, and tractors; it is the direction in which sales have " held up " encouragingly. Great Britain's market in this industry is The World, and not her own confines alone. As the older makers of tractionengines, road-rollers, agricultural engines and threshing outfits know, a properly-developed Colonial and Foreign trade may easily—after some years of building-up and careful fostering—outstrip Home trade in the ratio of four to one. It was for this reason, among others, that, on the 21st of last month, we announced our seventh "export special "—the " Overseas " issue. Its forerunners from this office date back to March, 1905, and constitute a unique record of missionary effort, in English, Dutch, Japanese and Spanish, to which much of to-day's turnover in business motors is admitted to be due. It is only by keeping prospective users informed, and by putting before them authoritative and independent statements concerning achieved progress, that the full volume of waiting trade can be made to flow. Order-books, we know, are not in a parlous state, but nobody will object to fresh entries in them. We feel that accessions of trade will again follow our forthcoming budget of news, descriptions, and figures.