MOTOR CAR 



preceded at a distance of 100 yd*. 



man on foot carrying a red 

 flag to warn passengers of it* ap- 

 proach, and should not exceed 4 in. 

 nn lii-nr in >]<!. This law at one 



i ippled a great imhist i 



f what 



.-ih-i-.idy promised to be a 

 valuable means of transport. When 

 suppressed, the London steam 

 coaches alone had travelled over 



m. without serious accident, 

 anil Ixvoiiic cxMvmcly jxjpular. It 

 n also worthy of record that a 

 vehicle built \>y Ogle & Summers, 

 ami test-ed before a special com- 

 mission of the House of Commons 

 in 1 v;n, attained a maximum speed 

 :n.p.!i. on the level, and, 

 though not provided with springs, 

 ran 800 m. over roads which to-day 

 won Kl IK- considered very second - 

 class without a breakdown. 



In France road locomotion suf- 

 fered from want of financial sup- 

 port till after the Franco- Prussian 

 War. In 1ST:?. M. Bollee drove a 

 steam omnibus from Paris to 

 Vienna at an average speed of 18 

 m.p.lt. Six years later appeared the 

 steam-driven tricycle of MM. 

 Bout on and Trej>ardoux, working 

 conjointly with the Comte de Dion. 

 BvpoDet followed in 1887 with a 

 tricycle, the first vehicle to use a 

 "flash" boile. The year 1884 

 witnessed what is, perhaps, the 

 most important event in the his- 

 tory of automohilism the intro- 

 iluction by Gottlieb Daimler of the 

 petrol gas motor, in which the 

 ignition was by means of a red-hot 

 platinum tube, the advantages of 

 which were speedily recognized. In 

 I VI. M. Pierre Giffard, editor of 



"it Journal, organized a 

 motor race from Paris to Rouen, 

 offering valuable prizes for the 

 self-propelled vehicles which should 

 prove most easily handled, cheapest 

 to run, and safest for passengers. A 

 steam car came in first, but the 

 chief prize went to a petrol-driven 

 ear. In the following year a race 

 from Paris to Bordeaux was held, 

 and the steam care were hopelessly 

 In at on. To-day the petrol engine 

 is used by the vast majority of 

 road passenger and commercial 

 mechanically-propelled vehicles. 



General Use of Motors 

 The enormous multiplication of 

 motor vehicles, numbering about 

 I 853,900 in Great Britain in 1921, 

 -Lows the popularity of automo- 

 bilism in its various forms. In 1921 

 was paid in the United King- 

 dom on over 226,000 cars, 370,000 

 motor cycles, and over 22,000 

 heavy vehicle-. The U.S.A. has the 

 largest number of motor vehicles, 

 intimated at over 9,000,000, in- 

 cluding 3,000,000 used on farms. 

 The services of motor vehicles dur- 



S553 



ing the Great War. 1914 19, 

 ouch an to bring about an almost 

 revolir inge in warfare. 



.1 them the hug> armies 

 could not have been fed or sup- 

 plied with munitions. 



TI.e speed record* made bv the 

 motor car eclipse those made by 

 any other form of locomotion, the 

 >ne excepted. Speeds of \> < 11 

 JO m.p.h. have been attained 

 on several occasions on racing 

 tracks, and over 100 m. covered in 

 M mins. In June, 1907, S. F. Edge 

 travelled 1,581 m., 1,310 yds. in J 

 hours on the Brooklands track. 

 Some nine years Liter, Mulford in- 

 creased the distance to 1,819 m. 

 on the Shecpshead track. New- 

 York, his speed averaging 75*8 

 m.p.h. The endurance of the car, 

 a* well as of the driver, has been 

 severely tested in some notable 

 transcontinental journeys, among 

 which that of Prince Borghese from 

 Peking to Paris in 1907 is, perhaps, 

 the most remarkable. 



THE PETROL CAR. The following 

 is a brief description of an ordinary 

 touring car, which may be regarded 

 as made up of two main items, the 

 chassis and the body. The first 

 includes the metal frame support- 

 ing the body and its attachments 

 eiiL'ine, radiator, carburetter, silen- 

 cer, dutch, gear-box, transmission - 

 gear, springs, axles, wheels, brakes, 

 and the various operating levers. 

 The body placed on a chassis may 

 vary as regards shape and passen- 

 geracconimodation according to the 

 len irt h of t ho chassis and the individ- 

 ual requirements of the purchaser. 

 Frame and Engine 



The frame is a light, strong steel 

 structure of two side members, 

 running from end to end and con- 

 nected by three or more cross 

 members. In some cases it is built 

 up from separate parts ; in others 

 pressed from a single sheet of 

 metal. The front quarter of the 

 frame is sometimes considerably 

 narrower than the rear, to enable 

 the steering wheels to be turned 

 freely through a considerable part 

 of a circle in either direction. 



The engine is attached either 

 directly to the front part of the 

 frame or to a small sub-frame con- 

 nected with the other. It consists 

 in most instances of two, four, six 

 or more vertical cylinders, bolted 

 to tho top part of a crank-case, 

 through which are laid the main 

 bearings to support the crank- 

 shaft. The bottom part of the case 

 is detachable for inspection and 

 adjustment purposes, and so 

 shaped as to form an oil reservoir. 

 The case also accommodates a 

 .shaft with cams or projections, 

 which, as they revolve, push up 

 tappet rods operating the valves of 



MOTOR CAR 



the cylinder*. The canmhaft u 

 geared to the crank-shaft, and re- 

 volves at half its speed. Sometimes 

 there is an overhead cam-shaft 

 which u similarly geared to th* 

 main shaft. 



EUctric SUrUn 



The engine a usually started by 

 a cranked handle at the front of 

 the oar. The stem of the handle 

 ' t a socket, and has a notched 

 end which engages with studs on a 

 continuation of the crank -shaft, if 

 turned in a clockwise direction, but 

 slips over them if revolved in th 

 other. When the engine begins to 

 fire the studs over- run the notches, 

 and the handle is automatically 

 disengaged. Many cars have now 

 mechanical compressed air or 

 electric starters which enable the 

 driver to set the engine in motion 

 without leaving his seat. Electric 

 starters are most popular, ae they 

 can be combined with ignition and 

 lighting apparatus. The simplest 

 form employs a dyna motor, geared 

 to the engine or gear. Under run- 

 ning conditions the dynamotor is 

 driven and generates current, which 

 goes to storage accumulators. To 

 start the engine, current from the 

 accumulators is switched into the 

 dynamotor, and it acts as a motor, 

 turning the engine or gear till the 

 engine begins to run on its own 

 account. 



Fig. 1 shows the mechanism of a 

 self-starter. A is a gear wheel 

 attached to flywheel or flywheel 

 shaft of the engine, B is the 

 pinion on axle of starting motor C. 

 When the self -starter is not in use, 

 B is in position shown in top part 

 af figure, and the armature D is 

 out of alinement with its field 

 magnets EE. To use the starter a 

 plunger switch passes current from 

 a storage battery through the h'cld 

 magnets which pull the armature 

 back as shown in the lower half of 

 the figure, and with it the pinion B 

 into gear with A. The armature is 

 at the same time rotated, so turn- 

 ing pinion and driving-wheel A and 

 starting engine. When the latter 

 starts the self-starter is automatic- 

 ally thrown out of gear. 



TRANSMISSION OF POWER : THE 

 CLUTCH. Unlike a steam locomo- 

 tive, a petrol motor cannot be 

 started from rest unless the engine 

 be already in motion. The engine 

 must get up some speed before it 

 has sufficient power to propel the 

 car. Consequently, a friction 

 clutch, which comes into action 

 smoothly, is used just behind the 

 engine to connect or disconnect 

 the engine from the transmission 

 gear at will. One part of the 

 clutch is driven by the fly-wheel, 

 the other part is mounted on a 

 shaft which forms the first stage of 



