Specialists and Their Supplies.
Page 74
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Something of a collective introduction is required, to the interesting pages which follow, that shall indicate to our readers the general tendency of advance which is being shown by the many manufacturers and factors of components and supplies of all kinds. Things have reached such a stage in the whole of the motor industry, in both the pleasure-car and commercial branches, that the number of by-products—shall we call them ?--is now a very large one indeed. Specialists have been at work last year, as in previous years, to improve many of those details which in the past, through little annoying faults, have done so much to irritate the earlier users and owners of commercial motors. Ignition troubles are now almost a nightmare of the past. Whereas but a few years ago a very large proportion of the "involuntary stops " recorded against vans, wagons, buses and so many other types were due to some trivial feature of electrical details, to-day magnetos may be padlocked in aluminium covers, and leads may be confidently encased with the knowledge that, once outside the garage, no electrical faults are at all likely to develop. in the pages that follow, we endeavour to indicate to our readers, amongst many other specialities, some of the best ignition accessories which have done so much to secure this result. Of speedometers, mileometers and other recording apparatus there is now available a very useful range. Taximeters, embodying mechanism of a similar class, have for some years past been before the public in approved types. But there has been distinct advance during the past year in respect of recording mileometers.
Of the other specialities, perhaps those which are sought most keenly by users are devices which hold out hope of the commercial employment of alternative fuels to petrol. To be perfectly honest, we cannot with unrestrained confidence point to any paraffin vaporizer which so far embodies the many requirenients of users in this respect. That there are carburetters and vaporizers which will yield, under certain circumstances, and with careful adjustment, satisfactory and economical fuel-consumption results, we are ready to admit, and such are well worthy of trial by those who understand the fuel problem. Our own technical opinion is that what will prove to be the ultimate solution will be developed along the lines of a compact, self-contained, gas-producer. Atomizing and heating devices may continue to find useful application in certain specified directions, but they are likely to be subject almost always to difficulties arising from climatic variation and to the impossibility of starting many of them without preliminary heating or a starting-up charge of volatile fuel. Electric starters and lighting sets have received the concentrated attention of manufacturers of similar classes of plant, and at the present time there are several quite satisfactory outfits of this description. In conclusion, we invite the careful attention of our readers to the compiled details in respect of accessories and supplies of all kinds which are included in the following pages. There is, as a rule, in a publication like the present one, a tendency to skip these individual notices of specialities and proprietary articles, but especial care has been taken in the present instance to insure the intelligent and critical description of only those details which are calculated to make a particular appeal to the readers for whom this issue is especially compiled.