MOTORING 



369 



speed trials, which were held recently, and which 

 so firmly established the automobile as the greatest 

 engenderer of speed in the world. 



The marvelous performance of Victor Demogeot, 

 with the now famous 200 horse-power Darracq, 

 marked an epoch in mechanical invention, since it 

 demonstrated that human ingenuity has been able 

 to devise a contrivance capable of producing and 

 sustaining speed without injury to itself at the rate 

 of two miles in one minute. On the Ormond 

 beach, which nature fittingly adapted to such a 

 performance, Demogeot operated the Darracq for 

 two miles in 58 4-5 seconds. 



There is no question as to the authenticity of the 

 record. The devices, which controlled the regis- 

 tering of the time, were perfect. They had been 

 tested until their accuracy could not be disputed, 

 and when Demogeot was crowned speed king of 

 the world by one of the handsomest daughters of 

 Florida, motor car speeding had reached its 

 zenith — that is, until some builder shall triumph 

 over this achievement by constructing the car 

 which shall make a ' ' three miles a minute rec- 

 ord." 



One of the principal New York manufacturers, 

 when solicited to give his opinion on the proba- 

 bility of that being accomplished, replied: "Why 

 shall I undertake to predict what may happen? 

 Three years ago some would have scoffed at two 

 miles in a minute; before that there was grave 

 question as to one mile in a minute. Who knows 

 that a car may not be driven three miles in a 

 minute?" 



It is almost impossible to describe the ride which 

 Demogeot made in his high-powered Darracq. 

 The speed of the car was almost too great for the 

 eye. Before the sense of the start had been fully 

 grasped, the machine was well on its way down the 

 course. Sight had not compared relative distances 

 between start and finish before the car was over the 

 line, and the excited spectators were cheering 

 because the time record stared them in the face, 

 when they had been barely able to gather the 

 flight of the man and the car which had made it. 



Imagine some straightaway stretch, not inter- 

 rupted by obstacles which shall at any place ob- 

 scure the line of vision. Think of some speck two 

 miles toward the horizon, that seems to move, 

 glance hastily at your watch, try to count sixty in 

 measured beats, and before you have finished, 

 witness a powerful motor car, puffing, roaring its 

 cry of triumph, rush past you with a man rigidly 

 holding the steering wheel, and then possibly some 

 idea may be obtained of Demogeot's triumph in 

 America. 



It meant a great deal to him, and it was only the 

 surly nature of Hemery, who won the Vanderbilt 

 Cup race in 1905, which prevented the latter from 

 attaining the lofty position in the world of chauf- 

 feurs now held by his rival, for Hemery was to have 

 driven the car had he not come into conflict with 

 t he managers of the races. 



'4- Everything else, which was done at Ormond, 

 was as nothing compared with this one achieve- 

 ment. Other manufacturers were greatly pleased 



by their successes and the general scope of the 

 competitions was beneficial toward what they were 

 supposed to accomplish, but there was nothing to 

 equal this marvel of speed development. The 

 Darracq people were richly repaid by their trips to 

 the United States in 1905, not only winning the 

 Vanderbilt Cup in October, but establishing the 

 mark of all marks in the winter following was a 

 rich harvest for one concern to reap within a 

 period of half a year. 



The freak Stanley steamer, driven by Marriott, 

 enjoyed its share of the honors which fell to the 

 victors at Ormond, and had there not been a 

 Darracq and a Demogeot, America would have 

 stood at the top of the list instead of France. Yet 

 the American manufacturer felt no selfish regret, 

 for the achievements of his own invention were 

 such that it was awarded high compliment for 

 what it accomplished. 



It is possible, however, in the future that races 

 will be so arranged that freak cars will not be 

 placed in the classes where machines corres- 

 ponding to the regularly-built models of a maker 

 are eligible to start. It is a trifle hard on the 

 regulars which are trying to induce improvement 

 on the lines which are followed in touring and 

 high-powered cars. The freaks may be all right 

 in the way that they show what can be accom- 

 plished if certain ideas are followed to an extreme 

 conclusion, but as the freaks never would be pur- 

 chased for family or business use, it seems hardly 

 just that they should command recognition on the 

 same footing as their really legitimate rivals. 



A significant report from Paris is to the effect 

 that the French makers are not so overrun with 

 orders at present as they were at the same time last 

 year. Perhaps American, English and German 

 machines are crowding the French builders harder 

 than they imagined would be possible. If that is 

 the real significance of a falling off in orders, it will 

 only be a question of time before the Frerjch con- 

 cerns will find that they must devote as much 

 attention to keeping their cars before the public as 

 they did to try to induce the public to take notice 

 of them when the automobile was beginning to 

 assume its earliest importance. Unquestionably 

 more cars will be in use in 1906 than ever before 

 in the history of the world and quite as certain 

 there will be at least one-third more in operation 

 in 1907. They must be produced somewhere to 

 meet the demand for them and the builder who is 

 most active in placing the best points of his 

 machine before buyers will absorb the cream of the 

 trade. 



The moment that a motor car is constructed 

 which shall come within the demands of some 

 purses, not yet quite sufficiently plethoric to ven- 

 ture upon such an experiment, that moment even 

 the present boom in the trade will be made to ap- 

 pear like a county fair as compared with a State 

 exposition. There are thousands of persons in 

 America who would gladly be the owners of motor 

 cars, but the price of the machines is still a little 

 above the amount which they feel willing to 

 expend. 



