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_i. DAY spent at the Leyland works meeting the chiefs and departmental heads is -full of interest. There is a wonderful spirit of co-operation pervading the administration, and we thought we detected its presence whenever we were brought into close touch with any of the workers, for they all seemed so keen. Everyone was thoroughly interested in his job and there was every evidence of a close meshing of departments, and of smooth working, such as one finds when one looks into the mechanism of an English lever watch.
MR. HENRY SPURRIER, back from his world tour, looked just as young as ever and he has unquestionably made many friends for Leyland products in overseas centres, for he has a very happy manner with new acquaintances which goes a long way. Yes, a valuable ambassador is Henryl Spurrier. He and the G.M. (for Mr. Liardet, the generd manager, is always thus referred to) had just returned from Ireland when they met us at the directors' luncheon room, and their air suggested that the negotiations in respect of the bus orders for the Irish Free State will be quite successful.
ARTHUR WHALESBY WINDSOR (once described
by King's Counsel as one of the best witnesses he had ever had in a case) is invaluable as a general sales manager, and we were interested to note that he retains that love of system which, while he was an assistant editor of The Commercial Motor, always enabled him to discover at a glance how any section of the work .happened to stand. He showed us the manufacturing programme for the year and we could see exactly the weekly output (which now. exceeds GO chassis and vehicles) and the chassis allocation for the next three months.
THAT great protagonist of the rigid-frame six wheeler, Mr. Reginald Clayton, managing director of Karrier Motors, Ltd., over the luncheon table the other 1.18 day, gave us his output figures for the type. We, of course, knew that Karriers had got well away with the six-wheeler, • but the figures were higher than we had thought. And it only seems the other day that the argument in favour of employing more ,wheels than four was first bruited in these columns. To Karriers is due the credit of getting the first six-wheeler into definite use (at the War Office trials at Wool in the early part of 1925) and the first six-wheeled vehicle on show (Olympia, 1025). Henry Tainsh, of Caledon's, had built two models even earlier and Sydney Guy had built a chassis with separate semi-elliptic springs to each axle instead of coupling the, two axles to one set of springs. His method, whilst it distributed the load over an extra pair of wheels, did not relieve the chassis or the road surface from shock.
BY the way, will someone invent names for the two axles of the bogie of a six-wheeler? They are both driving axles and, being close together and a long way from the front axle, they are both rear axles, and one of them cannot be called the middle axle because it is not in the middle of anything. There is no prize on offer, but the successful reader will earn our undying gratitude.
TALKING of six-wheelers reminds us of A. humorous
incident that, this week, momentarily: relieved the tension of getting The .Commercial Motor to press. The department making the half-tone blocks for the journal sent us, by mistake, a proof pull from a block :illustrating a Bissell carpet sweeper without its handle. The inevitable wag wrote a " caption " to it, describing it as "the four-wheeled bogie of the new Homeland six-wheeler, showing single-point attachment . to . the chassis frame, and the patent arrangement for removing nails, flints and other puncture-producing . implements from the path of the tyres," thus, incidentally, getting a dig at the Editor for his recently expressed anxiety for the welfare of the tyres on the rear axles of six-wheelers !
WE reeently had a long chat with Mr. J. W. Mills • regarding the Fejes method of chassis construction, reference to which is made elsewhere in this issue. We often had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Mills while he was general manager of Halley's Industrial Motors, Ltd., which he left to join the Fejes.Patents Syndicate, Ltd., and he is now frequently to be seen in the Ascot car, which is a new vehicle built on the Fejes principle. He is very enthusiastic regarding the possibilities of the new product and is convinced that it will have a remarkable future.
Although not large physically, he possesses what is even better : a dynamic energy which drives him forward and is communicated to his staff. For the time being the Ascot is being made as a private car, and we consider that this secession by Mr. Mills is a loss to the commercial motor industry. We hope, however, that later on his energies will be redirected into commercial transport Channels; for the system of construction for which he-is now responsible materially reduces the weight of metal that has to be moved every mile travelled by a vehicle.