Cars for the Back Lands.
Page 15
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By Henry Sturrney.
The motor vehicle for commercial purposes is proving its usefulness in all parts of the world--eivoized —as regards road conditions—and otherwise, but is the same design and construction of vehicle width serves us so well on hard macadam roads and which is it present being made to serve the purposes of all, really suitable for use in the back blocks of Australia and over the S. African veldt ? What 1 mean is, granted that our motor wagons, as they are, will do seful work under seemingly impossible conditions, would more satisfactory results be likely to result from a different design, when the road conditions of the back lands are considered? Where the touring car is concerned, controversy has frequently taken place on this point and whilst frequent speculeat lees departing considerably from the conventional have been demanded by Colonists, others have asserted, with equal vehemence, that what is good enough for us is good enough for them and thaa no change or modification of design is necessary and the fact. remains that no change has been made, or, where it has been attempted—as in the American buggy-type cars -the change has not been permanent and has had but a short vogue. Of course, from a manufacturing point of view, elianges in design are undesirable, and it is far more convenient to concentrate upon one or two models which, within their load capacities, will serve all customers in all countries and, as such conservatism of design tends to reduction in production costs and hence to reduction in price, it must be admitted that. if it can be maintained without detriment to the allround usefulness, under all circumstances, of the product, it is to the advantage of all concerned to leave it so. But, looking at the matter academically, orrather from the point of view of highest suitability for conditions imposed, I would like to hear from the residents "up country" and not from urban Colonials, whether, so far as their experience goes, the motor wagon of to-day does, really, fiff the requirements of local conditions satisfactorily, or whether they can suggest departures in design which will enable ahigher degree of efficiency and usefulness to he attained.
When we examine the practice in regard to the horse-drawn vehicle, we certainly do find a considerable divergence in design between the types employed in settled districts and those in use on the prairies and as these several and very distinctive types have, as it were, crystallized out as the result of a slow proeess of development for generations, I think it is only fair to conclude that different conditions require different types, and if in the older form of vehicle, why should it be otherwise in the new ? I have no personal knowledge of up-country conditions in Australasia or South Africa, but 1 have used buggies and buckboard wagons in the Canadian backwoods and on the confines of the " wild and woolly " west in the United States and have also seen something of the so-called " roads" in Eastern Europe, and I fancy the conditions nmst be somewhat. similar and. as the result of my observations, it appears to me that we might at least consider the possibility of a special development along new and unconventional lines, giving us better results in new country.
In the first place, are we right in wheel sizes ? Are not our wheels too small, where the ways are soft and deeply rutted, where wheels sink into loose and sandy soil and where we have at times to ford streams of varying depth up to 2.ft. or 3 ft. On the grass lands of Argentine and in some other countries, wheels for farm carts and pack wagons are ft. or 6 ft. and even more in .diameter, Can our at in. and 36 in., or even the 40 in. wheels of our larger motor
wagons, give us as satisfactory results—or even work at all— under the road conditions where these vehicles work 1 If it be conceded that they cannot, our tire makers will have to help, or we cannot make a change, for at present what the tire maker can provide us with, is our manufacturing limitation. Of course, if large wheels are called for, considerable engine reduction will be necessary, but as high speed over roads of the kind referred to would he impossible, this would not be an insurmountable requirement, though it is as well to pointout that, in the mere use ot _larger wheels, considerable mechanical variation is needed. Then, what about rigidity and strength? The buckboard wagon of the American prairies is alight, flimsy structure, yet it does its work under conditions where a substantial, heavy English carriage would fail. Are we to look in that direction for our design ? I think, myself, that for these extreme conditions, the substantial solidity of our motor wagon chassis, depending on its springs alone for accommodation of wheels to road surface, may quite likely be a mistake and a lesson might perhaps be drawn from a study of the freight wagons of Russia, which are built of the roughest and simplest character on what is practically equivalent to a three-point suspension principle, a single central beam connecting the two axles, much in the same way as with our timber wagons, so that either pair of wheels moves independently of the other, with what is almost the equivalent of a universal joint in the middle. The wheels jolt about and drop into big holes and are dragged over boulders in the most free-and-easy fashion, with very little effect on the loads. The employment of such a principle as this might very possibly be rendered difficult, or even impossible, on account of the requirement of transmission in a motor vehicle, but this difficulty might. possibly be met by the abandonment of rear transmission and the concentration of the power plantand transmission mechanism on the front wheels, which would then become a virtual tractor, with a two-wheeled " free-and-easy " trailer load-carrier to the rear. Again, of course, necessitating a very wide divergence from the details of conventional design. Springing, I take it, would have to be good and ample, in spite of the flexibility of the chassis itself. I have noticed that, in the Russian wagons, even where the " backbones " of the wagons are of rough unworked logs, the springing is generally ample and of great length with, in many cases, transverse springs and of no great weight. The high rate of revolution and the low wagon speed, would make it difficult to embody satisfactorily air cooling in the engine, but in up-country work, many hundreds of miles from repair shops, every superfluous part, it seems to me, it would be advisable to discard and, if it could satisfactorily be dealt with, the ideal so far as engine is concerned, would appear to me to be found in a two-cylinder, air-cooled, two-stroke, valveless outfit of slow speed--by comparison with the high speeds of touring car engines— and. if possible, using Paraffin as fuel, with the carburetter and magneto carried nearly to the top of the engine, so as to be well out of the way when crossing streams, even if the water were high enough to cover the floor of the car.
A wagon on such lines would be totally unlike anything on the market to-day and I do not know if, in the light of present knowledge, a really satisfactosy job could be produced. But I put the suggestion forward as something to think about as a possible development of the future to meet the conditions of work on the back lands of new countries and would like to know how nearly, or otherwise, my ideas are to those of men whose lives are spent in these places.