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ATTENTION TO BODYWORK.

31st January 1922
Page 26
Page 26, 31st January 1922 — ATTENTION TO BODYWORK.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Commercial Vehicle Agents Must Keep Up to Date in Their Knowledge of Body Design Progress.

By "Vim."

THE MORE I have to do with the selling of vehicles for industrial purposes the more fully do I realize the importance which knowledge of body design progress is assuming in the battle for orders. The agent who wishes to go ahead in the commercial car business must do better than keep abreast of the times in this respect ; he must keep

in front of them, if possible. , To me, as cloubtleselto many other agents, it has been, quite a surprise to find that, apparently, what most of our customers went to the Olympia Show last October for was to examine the bodywork there. Although I gave the exhibits all the time I. could, spare, I must confess that I have since been caught out again and again by customers who have wanted further information about bodies, and appliances connected with bodies, which they noticed at the Show, but which I did not. The fact of the matter is, of course, that I devoted my attention mainly to the mechanical features of the chassis. This was a serious mistake on my part. I ought to have remembered •that commercial vehicles are now in a similar phase of .development to that which touring cars passed through some ffteen years ago, when the efforts which manufacturers and public alike had concentrated on evolving reliable chassis eased off with the consummation of their hopes, and the comfort of the passenger suddenly became the all-important question. For several seasons thereafter, people went to the car exhibition to see coachwork, and were 'always sure of discovering interesting and novel points in body design. Gradually, however, the best ideas of individual co.aehbuilders were copied or adapted by the rest ; and, in due course, the way lost in body development was caught up, since when • bodies and chassis have progressed side by side.

Rapid Progress in Bodywork Design for Commercial Vehicles.

In the commercial vehicle world, bodywork was long neglected. Any old thing that would hold goods en a chassis was all that users asked for, if only the chassis was reliable. But by-and-by the majority of chassis became reliable, and designers and buyers began to think of improving the body part. At the mement, a big race is going on, in which first one coach:builder and then another dashes ahead with some original idea. No sooner is that idea put into practice than it is noted down for future use by those who own the same class of vehicle. Thus, the progressive but levelling-up process is going on at a great pace, although the day when bodywork development shall have caught up with commercial chassis development may still be some distance ahead.

It behoves every agent to keep track of new ideas in body designing, particularly those that relate to vehicles for special trades. Once I ventured to prophesy in these pages that the general tendency would be towards bodies expressly constructed to meet the requirements of each division of trade. Even now, that tendency is showing itself clearly. The brewer is no longer satisfied with the type of lorry that used to serve him and the coal and flour merchants equally well. He insists on a body capable of carrying his barrels safely, and as many of them as possible ; and having got it, he grows dissatisfied with the loading methods employed by his

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great-grandfather, and asks , for a hoist for lifting the barrels on and off the vehicle. Nor is he at rest then, for the chances are that the time spent ob loadand unloading seems so out of proportion to the rate of travel between stops that he commences to yearn for a beer "tanker," such as I saw the other day delivering its precious contents. through a hose into

the cellar of a public house, Incidentally, " wine from the wood" bids fair to pass altogether out of service ; it will be " svine from the bulk storage" One of these days.

The coal merchant, for his part, is tired of shovelling. He looks for appliances that will cut down his stoppage time to the minimum. If he does not bag his coal, he asks for a tipping body that will enable him to dump two or three distinct quantities on one journey. He is also, needing., although he may not know it, some more modern means than manual labour of getting his coal out of railway wagons and into his lorry. .

The Need for the Agent to Keep Himself

Posted.

Amidst this sudden demand from all quarters for the latest improvements in bodywork for various trades, the motor agent is apt to find himself bewildered. He has many customers in many trades, each one of whom is following closely what other motor transport users in his line of business are doing, and expects his agent to be able to tell him offhand all about, and where to get, the "kind of tipping gear that Whoseit and Co. have got on their lorries," or whatever may have struck him as a sound notion.

. When an agent is. asked for such informition, it is ten to one that. he s remembers having, seen the-very' thing either advertised or described somewliere, although he cannot recollect where. In a pass like this, his usual remedy is to write to the editor of the journal in which he believes he came across the particulars, to ask for his assistance, and I am willing to bet that the editor of The Commercial Motor will bear out this statement But while this assistance is readily and %promptly rendered, some delay must arise, and the customer is wrongly impressed by the agent's, inability to reply right away. The proper cure is for the agent to keep his own records. These may take the farm of a loose-leaf scrap beck or a card file, in which he pastes cuttings of all news items, illustrations, and advertisements describing ideas and inventions that are fresh to him and appear worth keeping. If he does not care about cutting up his weekly journals and prefers to have them bound —well, a few pence more a week will procure him additional copies for dissecting 1 As to the manner of classifying these cuttings, a good system is to file them alphabetically in the order of the names 'of the firms mentitmed, and to prepare concurrently two crossindexes,• one giving the names and addresses of those firms classified according to the nature of their products, and the other consisting of an alphabetical list of the trade names by which their products are known, togethei.. with details of the articles to which they are applied and the firms to whom they belong. In a month or two, these records will be so indispensable that the owner will wonder haw on earth he forraerly managed to get along without them.

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