What Users Tell U 5.—Interview No. 10.
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One Motorvan Does in Nine Hours What Three Horses Do in Three Days.
As a collection of expressions of opinion unsolicited by makers, it is probable that the present series entitled " What Users Tell Us " is as valuable testimony to the efficacy of motor vehicles in ownberless branches of industry as has yet been raede available. " What Users Tell Us " is sometimes, we fear, a misnomer, as some of the most interesting experiences come into our possession not by word of mouth, but by letter. The result, however, is the same. The following unsolicited testimony will carry weight with our readers.
Mr. Stobbs, of Messrs. R. Stobbs and Son, the proprietors of the Lighthouse Confectionery Warehouse, Hart Road, West Hartlepool, and wholesale agents for Needlers', the well-known sweet. makers of
is an old reader of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR. Before deciding to employ a motor vehicle in connection with his business, he wrote to us fully, and we were. happy to be able to advise him on the general question of motor delivery, as, indeed, we advise so many would-be users when first they are cogitating with regard to the practical nature of the change they contemplate. Mr. Stobbs now writes to us as follows : " We took delivery of our 34 h.p. Halley motorvan seven weeks ago. We enclose you an unmounted photograph of it, taken just as it was about to stag, on a 75-mile journey, which included 75 calls, or a call every mile, of course. [We reproduce here the photograph to which our correspondent refers.—En.] That particular journey was over very hilly country, and would, in the ordinary way, take three horses two long days, and they would then need a rest the day afterwards ; that is to say, it is a nine-horse-day journey.
"Our motor takes nine hours, giving an approximate ratio of nine to one between motor and horse. Of course, we have not had the machine any time, but, so far, it has worked in a highly -satisfactory manner. It is doing the work of six horses easily in five days, and we speak of motor days of from seven to eight hours duration and not of horse days, which frequently extend to 16 hours.
" Driver Jones, who figures in our photoaranh, was one of our horse drivers, and he now has full charge of the motor. He has had no previous experience of motors, and is only 21 ye.araold.. and that surely is goad testimony to the ease with which a machine of the standard of the Halley can be opevated. " Everybody tells Us locally that our machine is quite the finest commercial motor that they have seen. Before deciding on a Halley, we got the opinion of a large number of other motor users, and we inspected various makes. In our opinion, there is no better. Some days we do as many as 130 calls. The machine is entirely closed in at the front, and the only entrance to the van is at the back. The driver's working hours have been reduced by 30 a week, and we can only say that we wish we had had a motorvan many years ago. We have no hors-es at all now. So far as we can see the van will cost far less per week than the horses, and it will certainly do more work.
"We should like to conclude by thanking you for the kind information which you promptly sent to us when we wrote to you before we had decided to go in for a motor. We may add that we read THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR every week, and we get a lot of useful information from it. We consider the series of articles in your paper entitlod One Day's Work ' very fine, and awy should be agreat inducement to prospective buyees. " Yours faithfully, R. STOBBS ANT) SON."