THOSE " CONVERTED " TOURING CARS.
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Where There is a Converted Touring Chassis Doing Commercial Work, There Also is a Certain Sale for a Real Motor Van.
By "Vim."
IN MANY rural districts, and even in fairly important provincial towns, " converted" touring chassis are to be found doing duty ae,goods conveyances. This is rather ,diseouraging to motor Agents in those localities, and has a tendency—as conversations with some, of them have shown me—to make them feel that, in the face of such competition from discarded pleasure cars, which are relatively cheap to buy and to alter, there is little sense in their taking up agencies for real commercial chassis. With all due respect to provincial motor users, it nausVbe admitted that they do look at this business innovation in—shall we say—a less broad-minded way than their confreres in centres like London, Liverpool, Maneheeter, and. similar cities. One hesitates to call their anxiety to cut first cost, meanness ; but it certainly appears to be somewhat difficult for the provincial business man to go boldly into the thing, when he has decided to go into it at all.
Here, again, I am generalizing, and, thereby, unavoidably slandering a Arbolesome minority of men trading in the remoter areas of industry. As can be proved by hundreds of illustrations that have been printed in The Commercial Motor, boldness and enterprise, in the form of first-class goods vehicles, are not confined to the great cities; but, on an. average, it is a far easier job to persuade, say, a London laundry proprietor, that it will pay him to go in for the very hest he can get in the way of a motor van, than to effect the same result in the case of the
owner of the chief laundry An the city of X .
Why this should he so is soon solved. In spite of railways, telegraphs, and modern appliances that arc supposed to have annihilated distance, it remains an indisputable fact that progressive ideas in business almost invariably originate in. the big centres, where ' there is the keenest struggle to live, and that they take a long time to radiate into the provinces. Probably, one reason for this is that the lure of the hubs of commerce brings go-ahead men towards them_, and holds them there, so that there is only a feeble bankcurrent bearing the latest notions from those hubs.
It may serve to ward off from my head any wrath that those remarks of mine may arouse, if I explain that I do not live in one of the said brain-centres.
The truth is, many proviacial districts are now passing through an era in geode transport (I refer not so much to heavy work, as to 'tradesmen's deliveries) that busier places have almost left behind them. In 1912 or so, Londoners thought it was quite a sound. piece of economy to pick up unwanted touring cars at low prices, scrap. their bodies, or sell them for what their ample horse-hair stuffings would fetch, and to get local van-builders to equip them with van bodies, usually about three times too heavy for the purpose. Experience cured these economists, but the very word " experience " implies a long process—and it was, both long and bitter ! Some remnants of the old achool of thought still survive and, just as there are people who, cannot believe that paint is wet until they have touched it, so will the holders of the ancient doctrine fail to -benefit from the experience of others, but must, needs pass through the ordeal of owning a " crock " before they will appreciate the genuineness of the saying that anything which is worth doing is worth doing well'.
The fallacy of turning a touring Chassis into a commercial vehicle, in the very evening of its days must, one would imagine, be self-evident. Setting aside unsuitability cf design, it should be obvious to anybody that, when a car has ceased to be sufficiently reliable, or is too much of a nuisance, to be used by private persons bent on pleasure or recreation, it is the height of absurdity to employ it in a _business connection. Reliability and freedom from -trouble constitute the first quality required of a commercial vehicle. Were all else equal, it would be wrong to convert a discarded touring car into a van but, when one remembers that, on top of the new .demand,for unfaltering running, such a vehicle is • expected to carry heavier loads—and "dead" loads at that—the idea becomes a mad one. As well might an engineer say : "This bridge is no longer fit for foot-passengers, but, with a few trifling aiterations; it will do nicely for running trains on I
Note ,7 that I have been dealingall along, with discarded touring chassis ; that is, with chassis that have already served a term, generally a prolonged one, in the sphere to which it pleased their makers to call them. A new touring chassis often makes an exeellent van. f or the rapid delivery of light goods.; the loads given it may be lighter than a full complement of caassengers, and the general run of its work a good deal less exacting than that which would be asked of it in private hands. The main point is, that unless a tradesman starts off with a. reliable van, his last state is worse than his first, when he had a boy With a barrow to take his goods round, for, instead of an asset, he will have acquired a liability.
Real. commercial vehicles come on the market, second-hand, for various and valid reasmas, so that a tradesman may purchase'one and find his investment pay handsomely. But, not once in 'a hundred eases is an ex-touring ear converted into a van or lorry until, from one cause or another, it has shown itself unfitted for private work, each one of which causes will operate with double force-against the successful running of the car on commercial work,
Therefore, it comes to this : The era of the converted chassis will pass away from the provinces, exactly as it is passing away from the large cities. Owners, who, to-day, are wondering how motor transport ever came to be boosted up as it is, -when their 1906 Humble van persists in a regular routine of knocking out its engine bearings, burning out its clutch, smashing its front universal, twisting its gear hafts, and and breaking its driving shafts (with or without rear wheels coming off), repeated in order ad infinitum and ad nauseam, or their 60 hp. Sainekiir is in the habit of consuming one gallon of petrol to' five miles of road, besides needing a fresh pair of 935 by 135 back tyres every 1,500 miles, will be buying proper vans by-and-bye.
It is possible that, between the disposal of their crocks and their re-entering the field as motor users, there may be an interval for reflection, when they will try to do. without the help of motors. But that they will eventually come back to motor transport is absolutely inevitable. Whatever may be their wish in. the matter, they will have no choice. Pressure of eompetition, the demand of the public for quick delivery, and the incomparable convenience of the motor over other forms of' transport, will drive them to it.
The motor agent who cannot foresee the outcome of the present position is blind -to the greatest opportunity he has ever had, or is ever likely to have.