AUTOMOBILE 

 NOTES 



WILLARD NIXON 



Subscribers who desire to obtain either general or detailed information abowt 

 automobiles, are invited to correspond with the editor of this department of 

 RECREATION. Letters will be answered promptly, the reply going direct to the 

 writer, and correspondence will be published later in these columns for the interest' 

 of other readers whenever the character of the material warrants it and the cor- 

 respondent offers no objection. Communications must be received by the first of the 

 month to be available for use in the next issue. 



FIVE THOUSAND MILE TEST. 



An automobile has been run. 5,000 miles un- 

 der official supervision and without any me- 

 chanical trouble. This is the latest record 

 in long distance automobile trials, and the 

 performance from all accounts seems to have 

 been a very excellent and creditable one. 



The car used in this test was a two-cylinder 

 12 h.p. Touring Model of English manufac- 

 ture (Siddeley by name), and a full 

 complement of passengers was carried every 

 day of the run as well as a couple of hundred 

 pounds of tools, 

 spare parts, 

 tires, and the 

 like. Although 

 most of the 

 5,000 miles was 

 over good Eng- 

 lish roads, the 

 weather was as 

 bad as only 

 English weath- 

 er can be. There 

 were but three 

 days of dry 

 roads, so that 

 the conditions 

 were not alto- 

 gether favor- 

 able. During 

 the entire trial,, 

 the run was un- 

 der the official 

 s u pervision 

 of representa- 

 tives of the Au- 

 tomobile Club 

 of Great Brit- 

 ain. 



It cost $194.50 approximately to run the 

 car 5,000 miles — an average of nearly four 

 cents a mile. Of this total $94.82 was for 

 gasolene, oil, re-charging of ignition bat- 

 teries, small replacements ; the balance, $99.- 

 72 was expended for tire renewals. Thus it 

 will be noted that the tire expense was great- 

 er than everything else combined. 



A SURVEY OF THE RANGE. 



THE SOLID TIRE. 



After all, the real interest in these authentic 

 automobile trials is the matter of expense. 

 There is nothing very remarkable about the 



fact that a car 

 can actually run 

 5,000 miles 

 without me- 

 c h a n i c a 1 

 troubles. The 

 question is, 

 "H o w much 

 does it cost, 

 even if anything 

 doesn't break?" 

 The greatest 

 single expense 

 is for tires, and 

 although pneu- 

 matic tires are 

 almost univer- 

 sally used, many 

 people can not 

 understand why 

 solid tires are 

 not to be pre- 

 ferred. 



The solid tire 

 certainly does 

 s e e m a very 

 practical article, 

 for there is no 



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