18 
LAND &P WATER 
December 5, 1918 
^'Service" for British Motorists : 
By H. Massac Buist 
AT a time when the motor movement is astir and 
pulsating with effort to return to its normal line 
of development, and while it is being discovered 
on all hands that that process cannot be done on 
a sudden, but must be gradual and fraught with 
handicap in a hundred and one wa3's, many of them unex- 
pected, it is as well to take stock of the situation from the 
private motorist's point of view. There is too general a 
tendencj' to assume that, if we could get back to the motoring 
conditions that obtained before August, 1914, everybody 
would be satisfied. Any such argument ignores the fact 
that, though the number of motorists will be greater in the 
post-war than in the pre-war period, the individual com- 
posing their ranks will have been as completely re-assorted 
as will the members who will compose the Parliament about 
to be elected. Death has removed a large number of motor- 
ists ; changes of financial circumstances will prevent many 
who motored formerly from doing so now, and will enable 
large numbers of those who could not motor before the war 
to indulge in the most costly forms of it henceforth. 
In the main, however, what the motorist will want in the 
post-war period as soon as the first frenzied rush for cars 
shall have been satisfied, will be better motoring for less 
nioney. Of course, he knows tliat labour charges, among 
other factors, will prevent costs receding appreciably for 
certainly a period of j-ears ; but he may reasonably hope 
that better methods of production will largely offset this, 
particularly if it is exploited on the principle of each British 
firm making one type of car only, towards which end we 
were working when the war broke out. Therefore, it is 
extraordinary to discover that at the moment few manu- 
facturers' plans for the immediate future would indicate 
that we were near attaining it. By November, 1919, however, 
the situation in this regard will be found to have altered 
entirely in the direction of the one maker one chassis pohcy. 
How to have Better Motoring for Less Money 
Even so, our cars will cost us more. How, therefore, can 
we reasonably expect to enjoy better motoring for less 
nioney ? Evidently we may look presently for each car to 
be better of its kind more than in measure as we pay extra 
money for it. Progress in design will be revealed ; -therefore, 
we shall be satisfied to pay more. We shall, besides, fine 
cars so marketed that, as far as concerns at least 90 per cent, 
of those sold, it will be possible for the owners to economise 
more than the extra initial cost of them by way of reduced 
maintenance. It has been said that, before the war, a man's 
service was the cheapest thing money could buy. Be that 
as may be, certainly service is almost the dearest thing " 
to-day. It will long' remain so. 
Many car owners who kept a motorman before the war 
will prefer henceforth to keep a better car and no motorman. 
What, then, is to become of the motorman ? How is the 
car to give better service ? Firstly, by our recognising that, 
whereas before the wa.r we held a man able to drive a car to 
be quaUfied for a special calling, to-day we expect a man, 
or even a girl who deh'vers groceries, or bread, to be able,, 
as a matter of course, to drive the motor van in which such 
food-stuff is brought to the door. 
Centralised Use of Specialist-Motor-Mechanics 
But if the individual owrjer were wholly to keep a map at 
home at higher wages, he would be no better off. One man 
so employed, however, can maintain a couple of dozen, or 
even more, cars. There is no reason why. he should not 
be able to keep one hundred running, because we do not 
propose he should undertake the work of major repairs. 
Those have been done always most satisfactorily and cheaply . 
by the manufacturers. 
It stands to sense, however, that when the proposition of 
car up-keep becomes divisible as to any individual man's 
services between a couple of dozen owners instead of one, 
that the given man can earn appreciably more money, yet 
the individual owner can save a very large proportioi), of car- 
maintenance costs. Even at pre-war wages, provided it was 
decently handled and assuming that you were not robbed 
by a dishonest chauffeur in the matter of purchasing fuel, 
lubricant, and tyres, you could run the largest sort of six- 
cylinder car for from £160 to £200 a year ; whereas for a 
good man you had to pay anything from £125 to £175 a year, 
including the charges of housing hire. By requiring only 
£25 worth a year of a man's time, however, the post-war cost 
of maintaining cars can be brought down very considerably. 
The owner of a middle-size car would not want even that 
proportion of a man's labour. We must have in mind that, 
while one or two firms are so utterly out of touch with the 
progress that has been made in the world as to think of 
marketing cars with, or without, mechanical engine-starters 
at option, the pubhc, as well as the majority of manufac- 
turers, realise that it ought not to be necessary to ask if the 
price of a car includes a mechanical engine-starter. It would 
be nearly as absurd as to ask if a car sold at a round sum had 
an engine under the bonnet ! Now that the owner has 
merely to turn on the fuel-tap, touch a switch, press a pedal, 
and the engine starts, he has really dispensed of the main 
need for employing a motorman exclusively, for this is, besides, 
the age of the detachable wheel. 
The Way New Style Service Will Become 
Available 
In this country the big centres of population are much 
closer set than in the United States of America. There 
labour has been always so dear that only in big centres do 
the rich have motormen. The, vast majority has used its 
cars always without employing motormen. The movement 
would never have developed to such amazing proportions as 
obtain in the Western Hemisphere if the trans-Atlantic industry 
had not had the enterprise to recognise this fact, and scheme 
accordingly. That the lines evolved are sound is abundantly 
plain from the fact that America's main hold on the export 
market is due to her employing precisely the same methods 
she uses at home, whereas we have never attempted to 
imitate them. Those methods are described in the one 
word : service. 
If you buy a car, you must do so from the recognised and 
responsible agent. His sole business is to see that your car 
always functions properly. If it does not, he knows you wiU 
•not go to him for another one ; also that you will give that 
make of car a bad name wherever you go. In short, his 
business is founded on results, as any enduring business 
must be. 
The New Era for Garage-Agenoy Businesses 
There is, perhaps, no trade in the country that 'has suffered 
more as a result of the war than that of the local agent and 
garage-keeper. Numbers of such businesses, having become 
bankrupt, have been wound up. Yet the conveniences of 
motoring before the war was due mainly to the abundance 
of such organisations. Inasmuch as we are on the eve of 
restarting such of these businesses as have been diverted, 
or of creating fresh agencies and garage businesses where 
others have ceased to be, it is well that the permanently 
changed condition should be recognised at the outset. If 
success is to be achieved the line of procedure must.be wholly 
different from the pre-war method. 
Instead, it must be modelled on the American system of 
rendering service. Skilled motormen must be employed for 
the most part, not by individual car owners, but by local 
garages or motor agents. Incidentally by this means each 
man becomes gradually a speciahst in one branch of the 
work. Thus, each garage could have a man for electricity. 
One uses the broad term because electricity is now employed 
on a car for three main functions : to fire the gas in the 
cylinder, which is its original sole function in motoring ; 
to light the vehicle, which has long been standard practice ; 
and to start the engine, wliich is the main post-war standard 
development in motoring as far as tliis country is concerned. 
At the given estabhshment another man would specialise 
on engines ; another on gears, back axles, and chassis in 
general ; another on coach-work and fittings. Thus, with 
relatively a small staff, nevertheless, each local organisation 
could render the car-owner really adequate service. Of 
course, in big centres, such as London, Birmingham, Man- 
chester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and so on, individual motor 
enterprises could, and assuredly would, exploit even more 
ambitious schemes, as, for example, by reproducing the 
Willys garage and repair organisation established in New 
York. 
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