Car (vehicle)

“ I never allow the mechanical portion of the motor-car to interfere with the interior of the carriage, a rule which experience has taught me to be very necessary. Your motor-car engineer as a rule gives but little heed to the carriage part of his vehicle; to him the engine is all in all, and he will not hesitate to thrust some of his oily belongings into the interior of one's vehicle unless such a rule as that which I have made is strictly laid down and sternly kept. ”

“ The motor-car, when in the hands of a careful and experienced driver, is admittedly the safest form of vehicle on the road, the chief reason for this being the rapidity with which it can be stopped, even when travelling at high speeds, and also the ease with which under the same conditions it can be diverted from its course into the direction desired by the driver. ”

“ Before the advent of the motor-car, Society, though tired of “biking” and craving for a novelty, could not tolerate the notion of being seen in any other than a well-horsed vehicle. Society now thinks differently, as evidenced by a stroll in the Park during the season. There, in the midst of graceful landaus and other equipages drawn by the most splendid horses in the world, may be seen endless electric and steam barouches, broughams, victorias, and cars, all perfectly noiseless, and magnificent petrol motor-cars (not noiseless!) ”

“ Automotive transportation may be considered to include all conveyance from one place to another by means of motor vehicles. A motor vehicle is one which carries within itself the source of mechanical power which propels it providing that source be not muscular. This definition would include the tractor, the road roller, the torpedo, and the locomotive, which are ordinarily excluded. For the purposes of this discussion an automobile or motor car may be considered as a self-propelled vehicle which transports a burden other than itself as a weight upon its own wheels. ”

“ The driver and conductor on top were still, too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and the low wailing of the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the grinding of the wheels. ”

“ The small car has come, and its merits are so considerable, the pockets to which it appeals{94} so many, that its popularity is assured. It is not a very rash prophecy to declare that in a few years’ time it will be the vehicle most commonly met with on the high road, and its manufacture the mainstay of the motor trade. ”

“ As a matter of law, the automobile is a vehicle, and has precisely the same rights on the highway that a bicycle or a carriage has. The horse has no monopoly of the highway, it enjoys no especial privileges, but must share the road with all other vehicles. Furthermore, the law makes it the business of the horse to get accustomed to strange sights and behave itself This duty has been onerous the last few years; the bicycle, the traction engine, and the trolley have come along in quick succession; the automobile is about the last straw. ”

“ Not in name merely, but in fact, they have been Sociétés d'encouragement throughout, and by trials and demonstrations in Great Britain, and races and hill-climbs abroad, have established the claims of the motor vehicle to the attention of the world. ”

“ Assuming that the vehicle is in perfect condition for use and the engine has been set going, the first thing to do is to examine the ways and means of starting the carriage either forward or backward, to ascertain how to stop it when desired, and steer it from side to side or round a corner, or to avoid an obstacle. We will suppose that the vehicle is of the Panhard type, with wheel steering and single lever at the right-hand side, giving the speeds forward and reverse. ”

“ For after including automobile truck, automobile wagon and motor cycle, the words 'any other self-propelled vehicle not designed for running on rails' still indicate that a vehicle in the popular sense, that is a vehicle running on land is the theme. It is a vehicle that runs, not something, not commonly called a vehicle, that flies. ”

“ It is not possible for a motor or any other vehicle to descend the steep, stone-paved streets, and about a quarter of a mile above the town we left the car in an exceedingly prosperous-looking stable-yard filled to overflowing with motors, carriages and chars-a-bancs. ”

“ When driving on greasy roads it is always well to keep as far away as possible from any vehicle in front, whether it be a motor-car, a horse-drawn vehicle, or a cycle, as this allows plenty of time to pull up slowly and gradually. ”

“ The uses to which the motor vehicle has been put are legion. On railways the motor carriage is catering for local traffic. On the roads the motor omnibus is steadily increasing its numbers. Tradesmen of all sorts, and persons concerned with the distribution of commodities, find that the petrol- or steam-moved car or lorry has very decided advantages over horse traction. Our postal authorities have adopted the motor mail van. The War Office looks to the motor to solve some of its transportation difficulties. ”

“ For household purposes, if you live at a distance from your country town, you will find a motor car of great use for parcels, for sending away your game, and for bringing your supplies; and let me also mention that your servants, should you care to give them a day's outing in the summer, will enjoy a motor-car drive and a picnic in the woods with a zest which they never knew in th days of the horse-drawn vehicle. ”

“ AUTOMOBILES. A Few Rules of the Road Which, It Is Hoped, Will Speedily Be Adopted By All Automobile Societies.
The automobile is the rich man's liquor and the poor man's chaser.
It keeps our streets full of red, white and blue streaks all the livelong day, and if the weary pedestrian is not supplied with a ball-bearing neck his chance of getting home is null and void.
Probably the safest part about the machinery of an automobile is the Chauffeur, because he knows which way to jump out.
Chauffeur is the name of the man who points the machine at you and dares you to get out of the way. ”

“ The car, he saw with the experienced eye of a connoisseur, was a recent model of one of the most expensive and popular foreign makes: built on lines that promised a deal in the way of speed, and furnished with engines that were pregnant with multiplied horse-power: all in all not the style of car one would expect to find controlled by a solitary woman, especially after ten of a summer's night. ”

“ The car, with its exhaust wide open, for your Italian driver delights in noise, roared down the grade at express-train speed, took the hairpin curve at the bottom on two wheels, to be brought to an abrupt halt with an agonized squealing of brakes, our further progress being barred by a six-inch tree-trunk which had been lowered across the road like a barrier at an old-time country toll-gate. ”

“ We have just finished a trip of a couple of hundred miles through southern England in a motor car. In France and the United States it is an automobile, but in Great Britain it is a motor car. This is a better way to see the country than from a railroad train, and not so good as walking. If you have a motor car or have a friend who has one, that is the best way to travel. If you have none and no prospect, a motor car is a delusion and a mistake. ”

“ MOTOR-CARS THE MOTOR OMNIBUS — RAILWAY MOTOR-CARS
The development of the motor-car has been phenomenal. Early in 1896 the only mechanically moved vehicles to be seen on our roads were the traction-engine, preceded by a man bearing a red flag, the steam-roller, and, in the towns, a few trams. To-day the motor is apparent everywhere, dodging through street traffic, or raising the dust of the country roads and lanes, or lumbering along with its load of merchandise at a steady gait.
As a purely speed machine the motor-car has practically reached its limit. With 100 h.p. ”

“ A one-seated buggy is Cupid's most formidable chariot. It beats an automobile farther than we can say. An automobile is an intricate piece of machinery and the driver, if he is of the right kind, will exercise the greatest care. He must look well to his steering, must diligently examine the road as he passes along to avoid obstructions, ruts and broken pieces of glass, and especially is it necessary for him to keep his car from colliding with other machines. ”

“ Dad, we drove in the automobile along the Appian Way. It sounds shocking, but it wasn't; it was glorious. There is never anything jarring (I don't mean that for a pun) about going into the midst of old and wonderful things on a motor-car, for it is wonderful too, and it has a dignity of its own-the dignity of fine and perfect mechanism which seems alive, like a splendid Pegasus or an obedient unicorn, or some other strange legendary animal which you are obliged to respect and marvel at. ”

“ The driver of the motor should then talk soothingly to the horse, and the groom should also encourage it as much as possible. The horse will follow with his eyes the movements of the car, and, as a rule, in a little while will allow it to be driven close by without any further signs of fear. The horse should then be harnessed and taken out on the road, the motor-car driven out to meet it, and sent a number of times past it until the animal takes little or no notice. ”

“ The car is so singularly intelligent that you feel it is a friend, too kind-hearted and chivalrous a creature to let anything bad happen. Of course, about every ten minutes something almost happens, but that is invariably the fault of other people's cars. You dash up to the mouth of a cross-road which you couldn't possibly have seen, because it is subtly disguised as a clump of trees or a flowery knoll; and you discover its true identity only because another motor—a blundering brute of a motor—bursts out at fifty miles an hour in front of your nose. ”

“ Our “chauffeur” shook his head. “Not without wrecking the engine. There is nothing for it but to be towed to a machine shop.”
[19]
“And then?” I asked.
“That depends——” was his ambiguous answer, and we said nothing more.
Is there anything more exhilarating than an automobile running smoothly along? Is there anything more dispiriting than the same automobile unable to go? The bigger and heavier it is, the worse the situation seems to be. You might get out and push a little one, but a big car standing stonily silent portends something of the inexorability of Fate. ”

“ The car is a short caboose, fashioned like a small, ill-shaped back kitchen, and it has no more wheels than a one-horse wagon, which gives it an uneasy and suggestive way on the track. A brakeman sits with his head swung out at a window. The conductor sits with his watch in his hand. Nobody has any business there at all. The engineer is doing his best to make a distant station, and get upon the side-track before the Express wants the road. ”

“ Fancy Aunt Mary and me lolling luxuriously (I love that word "lolling") in a snow-white car with scarlet cushions, all the brass-work gleaming like a fireman's helmet—the rakiest, smartest car imaginable! There are two seats in front and a roomy tonneau behind. The steering and other arrangements are quite different from those in the poor dead Dragon—rest its wicked soul! There's a steering-wheel, and below it two ducky little handles that do everything. One's the "advance sparking lever," the other the "mixture lever." ”

“ Yet that is what many people are expecting, forgetful of the fact that a motor-car is a horse and carriage in one, that its stable bill is of the smallest, that it ceases to consume oil or spirit immediately it is at rest, and that although its tyre bill, and accounts for occasional repairs, may be high, it is not subject to half the troubles that worry the owner of even the best-conducted horse stables. ”

“ The fact that will assert itself directly we have a proper supply of easy, quick, and comfortable motor-cars available, is the fact just named—i.e. that we live on roads and do not live on railways. The circumstance that a motor-car can stop at the garden gate if we live by a highway, or drive up the carriage-drive and draw up level with the porch if we live within lodge-gates, and take a man direct to the door of his office, or of his friend, or wherever he wants to go to, is bound to make the motor-car beat the train for all short-distance work. ”

“ Few undertakings require more care and caution than the choice of a motor-car. Of the three or four hundred types and varieties now in existence, many are of no practical use, some are extremely complicated, not a few dangerous, and many more or less faulty in construction. The difficulty of the choice is increased by the fact that almost every enthusiast recommends the particular kind of carriage he himself possesses, and in addition every manufacturer claims, and possibly believes, that his is the only possible automobile. ”

“ The above seems incredible, now that we have passed through the various stages of motor car improvements and motor clothes creations. The rapid development of the automobile, with its windshields, limousine tops, shock absorbers, perfected engines and springs, has brought us to the point where no more preparation is needed for a thousand-mile run across country with an average speed of thirty miles an hour, than if we were boarding a train. ”