Motorcar

“ Locomotive driving at a hundred miles an hour is but mild exhilaration as compared to the feelings of the motor-car driver who travels at fifty miles an hour on the public highway.
Gigantic motor trucks carrying tons of freight twist in and out through crowded streets, controlled by one man more easily than a driver guides a spirited horse on a country road.
Frail motor bicycles dash round the platter-like curves of cycle tracks at railroad speed, and climb hills while the riders sit at ease with feet on coasters. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was nothing like a motor-car! A motor-car made up for this rotten, stodgy, boring life. To rush along the smooth roads in your car, to let her rip: tock, tock, tock, tock, tock-tock-tock-tock! Ha!... Ha!... That would be grand! Suppose his father were to make him a present of a car.... Ha!... Tock-tock-tock-tock!... And, as he spurted along, he suggested to himself the frantic orgy of speed of a puffing, snorting motor-car, the acrid stench of its petrol-fumes, the ready obedience of the pneumatic-tyred wheels while the car flew through the dust like a storm-chariot over the clouds. ”

“ It is this joy of control that comes to the driver of an automobile which is one of the motor-car's chief attractions: it is the longing of the boy to run a locomotive reproduced in the grown-up.
The ponderous, snorting, thundering locomotive, towering high above its steel road, seems far removed from the swift, crouching, almost noiseless motor-car, and yet the relationship is very close. In fact, the automobile, which is but a locomotive that runs at will anywhere, is the father of the greater machine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Motor-cars were rushing about as numerous as flies in August. Trolley-cars followed one another up and down Seventh Avenue in endless processions. Wagons and trucks stretched along the highway in slow-moving lines as far as the eye could see. Bells were ringing, whistles tooting, horns blowing, motor-cars honking, newsies shouting. The grinding of car-wheels, the rattle of carts, the clatter of hoofs on the asphalt, the shuffling of feet on the sidewalk, and a thousand other noises combined to make an indescribable and confusing roar. ”

“ 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!) ”

“ 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. ”

“ Concurrently with its development into a reliable, silent, odourless and smokeless power-propelled vehicle, the motor-car gradually came into more general use. It no longer appealed only to a few but gained converts daily, and its final triumph came when it began seriously to displace the horsed vehicle. becoming the private carriage of the wealthier classes to be used on all occasions. ”

“ The motor-car triumphed. It grew rapidly more reliable, more silent, more pleasing to the eye; and to-day it glides in thousands along our roads, a pleasure to those who occupy it, a nuisance neither to pedestrians nor to other wheeled traffic; more under control when it is well driven, and more ready to stop quickly when required, than any horsed vehicle which it may have replaced. At one time the papers were full of such headlines as: "Another Motor-car Accident." ”

“ A boulder now and then or rough ledge cropping across the road would tilt the old lady at an uncomfortable angle. Heights and climbs over dangerous switchbacks had become commonplaces of travel by now, and we had gained confidence from learning the tremendous flexibility of which a motor car is capable. We were willing, without taking credit for extraordinary courage, to undertake almost any road wide enough for our tracks. People who confine their driving to perfect boulevards and city roads have no idea of the exhilarating game motoring really is. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ So many accidents have occurred lately through the ignition of petrol that a wealthy motorist, we hear, is making arrangements for his car to be followed, wherever it may go, by a fully-equipped fire-engine, and, if this example be followed widely, our roads will become more interesting than ever.
Are there motor-cars in the celestial regions? ”

“ 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. ”

“ My Serpollet can travel very easily twenty-five miles an hour on an ordinary give-and-take road, even when fully loaded. Faster than that is not comfortable and is not necessary. Averaging twenty miles an hour and allowing two hours for meals, exercise and sight-seeing, one finds that eight hours of a winter's day are gone when one's 120 miles are finished. In the summer, when touring is of course pleasanter, one can travel two hundred miles a day with the greatest ease and without discomfort.
A very useful form of motor-car is a beaters' or luggage-car, that is to say, a long wagonette. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Think of the English roads and lanes, of the pretty girls and decent men one meets on horseback or in smart dogcarts, the dowagers in victorias, the crowds of cyclists, the occasional fine motor-car, knickerbockered men walking for the pleasure of exercise! Here, though one knows there are more motors than at home, one rarely comes across them out of towns; and as for ladies and gentlemen, or, indeed, any sort of people out solely for enjoyment, they're as rare as black opals. ”

“ The hotter the sun the more agreeable the fanning of the air through which we pass, and the cold of winter, guarded against in proper fashion, carries with it its own exhilaration. To my mind the greatest pleasures and the greatest advantages derivable from the motor-car are the power of traversing large areas of the beautiful country in which it is our happiness to live. The use of motors in town is increasing and, doubtless, will greatly increase. ”

“ At the present time probably not one per cent, of the owners of motor-cars have a suitable coach-house for this new class of vehicle. They are generally placed in sheds or outbuildings, more often damp than dry, or in coach-houses built for horse-drawn carriages. Few recognise that the motor-car is a far more delicate article than the horse-drawn carriage, most people having grown up in the common belief that anything to do with machinery is strong, and will bear knocking about. ”

“ The motor-cycle of to-day is fast taking the place of the ordinary bicycle, and the automobile, or auto, as it is commonly called, is taking the place of our horses. This being so, it has occurred to the writer to prepare a line of stories, telling of the doings of a number of lively, up-to-date lads who at first own motor-cycles and later on become the proud possessors of a touring car.
This tale before you, “The Motor Boys,” is the first volume of the series, telling of the doings of Ned, Bob, Jerry and their chums in and around their home town. ”

“ 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 substitution of the motor-car for the horse was beneficial in various ways. In the first place the car is much more speedy and more comfortable for transport. With a motor-car a physi- cian, for instance, can extend his practice over a much wider territory; contractors can oversee more thoroughly a number of projects under way at the same time; stores and factories can deliver goods in the country, at distances of 30 m. or more, in their own vehicles, whereas with horses their delivery territory was limited to the city. ”

“ A good many people interested in motor-car matters are prone to the assumption that the motor-car question is a very simple one. To the horror of a good many of my enthusiastic friends I have always been bold enough to make two statements, first, that in unskilled hands the motor-car is very dangerous to its owner, its passengers, and others; and secondly, that the motor-car is as complicated as the horse. ”

“ If, however, it were possible for the householder to engage a light motor-car for himself and his wife and eldest daughter, a motor-brake for the children and servants, and a light steam-van for the luggage, bicycles, buckets and spades, and perambulators, which would load up, not against time, but quietly at the front and back doors, and unload at the hotel or lodgings, what a vast deal of fuss and worry would be saved! ”

“ Seeing beautiful things when you travel by rail consists mostly on getting half a glimpse, beginning to exclaim, "Oh, look there!" then plunging into the black gulf of a tunnel, and not coming out again until after the best bit has carefully disappeared behind an uninteresting, fat-bodied mountain. But travelling by motor-car! Oh, the difference! One sees, one feels; one is never, never bored, or impatient to arrive anywhere. ”

“ We can run the car down to the foot of the slope. It's more sheltered there—bigger trees, you know—and we'll be that much nearer where we want to go."
"But how can you make the car go—when it won't?" asked Mollie.
"The self-starter! It's guaranteed to run the car under electric power for nearly a mile, without the motor being operated. All we'll have to do will be to set the starter going—that turns the fly wheel, you know. Then we can put in low gear, slip in the clutch, just as if the motor was in operation, and get the car to the top of the hill. ”

“ 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. ”