Activity at the Daimler Works.
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In view of the fact that Mr. Frank Searle was back in this country after his European and Winnipeg trips, we took occasion, last week whilst in Coventry, to call and see him at the Daimler headquarters.
We were pleased to be able to confirm our impression that the commercial-vehicle department of this concern is making most remarkable progress, considering the short time that it has been initiated. Orders for no fewer than 470 of the 3-ton model, which was first shown at Doncaster, are on the books, and of these, 350 are to go to the Metropolitan Electric Tramways, 40 are being delivered to the British Automobile Traction Co., Ltd. (a B.E.T. concern), 10 to the South Metropolitan Tramways Co., and a number to various places abroad. Orders are actually pending, too, for certain big cities in Europe and in the U.S.A.—truly a remarkable development of the British commercial-vehicle industry.
Questioned as to his recent trip across mid-Europe with a Daimler motorbes of the latest type, Mr. Searle had many interesting as well as amusing things to tell us. The trip terminated at Buda Pesth, and many well-known German and Austrian cities were visited en route, a fact which we recorded in a recent communication from our Berlin correspondent_ The local municipal authorities showed very great interest in the machine, .and were, we are told, astonished at the stage of development to which the motorbus has now attained in this country, and of which the Daimler chain-geared and sleeve-engined model is so advanced a type. Amongst the many interested people who inspected the machine were the principals of 'several of the well-known German builders of industrial vehicles. The Daimler behaved itself in exemplary fashion, and created a very favourable impression wherever its powers were demonstrated, especially in regard to hill-climbing, speed, acceleration and control. With respect to his visit to the Winnipeg agrimotor trials, Mr. Searle was frankly not impressed with much else than that the area over which the machines operated was enormous. The tractors themselves apparently did not appeal to him from the mechanical point of view, after careful investigation. The trials, moreover, were little in the nature of a. severe test for the motors themselves, and he did not think they were so severe as several of those which had been already carried out on a much smaller scale in this country.
He was much more favourably impressed with the demand for a British type of commercial vehicle in the States and Canada than he was with either of these countries as residential venues.
We were able to take a short trip on one of the many Daimler chassis which are now going through the shops for delivery to prospective London motorbus owners. The chassis in question are, for test purposes, loaded right up to the maximum axle-weights representing their fully-loaded working condition. In this state the example which we tested ran with remarkable smoothness and quietness ; its turn of speed up several considerable gradients was a revelation. A rather unexpected but none the less welcome effect of the. unusual type of leather universal joints used in the Daimler propeller shafts has proved to be their sound-deadening property, which still further quietens a chassis which would certainly have been quite enough for most people without. them