The Self-Reversing Auto-Trailer.
Page 4
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We have for some considerable period been in touch with the progress of Auto-Trailers, Ltd., the registration of which company was reported in our columns on the 6th February last. This handy and interesting attachment, which promises to appeal successfully to owners of motorvans, travellers broughams, and motorcabs, for certain classes of use, is reversible without detachment, uncap sizable at high speed, and so designed that it exactly follows the track of the car to which it forms a desirable appendage. Correct tracking is found to be achieved in either direction, whethertravelling forwards or backwards.
The illustrations which we give are sufficient to diselose the simplicity of these Auto-Trailers. The trailing castor wheel has supporting springs above each extremity of the spindle, and another coil spring is provided in the fork crown. The method of attachment to the car may be varied, but it usually consists of one or more tubular sections or sleeves, at the forward end of the trailer platform, through which any convenient bar or bars at the back of the motorcar may be passed and secured. It will be seen, therefore, that th c. trailer platform
rises and falls as may be necessary, but that its sideways movement is exactly the same as if it formed an integral portion of the motorcar itself.
The rapidity with which, the castor wheel accommodates itself to the changes of direction, even from ahead to reverse, is quite satisfactory, and of course wholly automatic. It has been tested behind a car, up to (30 miles an hour, without giving rise to difficulties, and has successfully turned corners at high speeds, without capsizing. This will be obvious, when the construction and method of attachment are considered. It tracks correctly, also from the foregoing causes. Above all, for the reasons which we briefly explain on the second page of this issue, in the course of a short comment OR the invention, the " Auto-Trailer" is legal, provided it weighs not more than 2 cwt.
The example which we illustrate is being manufactured for privatecar uses, and is listed at 130, complete with standard brackets for fitting. We have reason to believe that the prop rictory company, Auto-Trailers, Ltd., whose West-end address is 14, Coach and Horses Yard, Old Burlington Street, W., and whose registered
offices are at 1, Queen Victoria. Street, EC., will be agreeable favourably to consider proposals bearing on its many likely applications for the benefit of commercial owners, with appiopriate modifications as regards price.
Whilst the London police may consiO.er there is not P0,0/11 for such a trailer attachment in the crush of Landon traffic, we think that a. fitting of this kind should be welcomed by ,many provincial cab
licensing • authorities. The sale price of a ceenmercial type should, we think, easily be got down to a sale price not in excess of £20, and that capital sum should be recouped many times over to an owner or a hirer. For example, a commerciel traveller might well carry one of his " skips " about with him, behind a taxicab, or behind a motor brougham, on an auxiliary platform of this kind.
In conclusion, we may point out that the " Auto-Trailer " is so arranged that it can be pushed by hand as a wheelbarrow, for which purpose legs are provided to support it when it is detached from the car. It can thus be loaded and unloaded away from the car, van or other vehicle to which it may be attached, and held in readiness when loaded