Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-03-31
COMP PARSONS ARE
APT TO MISLEAD
Miles Per Gallon Does Not
Necessarily Prove Service
ability of Car

During a discussion among several
show visitors last night concerning the
advertising claims of many motor car
manufacturers, w. r. Strickland, chief
of the Peerless Motor Car Company's
engineering department, came out fiat
footed with a statement which, on the
face of it, appears to conflict with the
ideas of about 80 per cent. of the
automobile builders. I'm the absence
of definite standards, comparative fig
ureS on the performance of a car are
misleading and generally worthless"
he declared.
Broadly speaking, the statement
that big car will make better than
twelve and fifteen miles an hour on
u gallon of gasoline means nothing,
he continued. "Or to say that it will
make seventy-two miles an hour,
means very little to the consumer. The
real information sought by the in
telligent buyer is: What will the car
accomplish under all conditions; how
will it take the bad roads; is it easily
handled in dense traffic; will 1t climb
hills; does it waste fuel and so on and
so on.
Anyone who knows anything at all
about building automobiles knows that
it is no extraordinary feat to put to-
gether car which under certain con-
ditions will make ninety miles an
hour, but the suitability of the car
for ordinary purposes is another ques-
ton. In fact, it might be absolutely
worthless for touring or normal city
driving and still it would make ninety
miles an hour. 1t is no real trick to
get a big gasoline mileage under cer-
tain conditions. For instance, if the
driving surroundings are just right q
faf- iohf off ~ 10 a
gallon of gasoline on one occasion and
that same car would have less than a
twelve-mile average for down town
work or for average country roads"
My advice to the buying public
is this: See what the car will do under
all kinds of conditions, before you buy.
Make the demonstrator take you over
crowded traffic, speed it up on level
highway and then compare its per-
formance under those conditions with
that of competitive cars. Finally, buy
the one which shows up the best. That
is the way to tell the efficiency of
a car.
Because of it's powerful S0-horse-
power motor, the Peerless car can fur
nish all the speed, and even more, that
anyone could wish. 1t was only a few
weeks ago that it won the dealers
event at the Uniontown, Pa, races
with an average speed of so miles an
hour and at times negotiating as high
as 50 miles an hour. Even then the
driver had not exhausted the full pos
sibilities of the motor. But, neverthe-
| less, the Peerless has something to
talk about besides speed. 1t points to
the fact, and proves it, that it is an
admirable car for all around service
1t has power, speed. comfort beauty
and a type of design which is used
/ only by the makers of the most costly
cars.
when any reference is made to
Peerless gasoline mileage, you can de-
pend upon it that the figures used
were not taken on a test trip, es-
! pecially to obtain the maximum mile
age under the most favorable condi-
| tions. The figures are taken from
across country trips, generally, and
they include every kind of driving OBJ
stacle which the ordinary motorist
would be liable to encounter. With
this in view, it means something wher
! the Peerless Company says that Ii
and more miles per gallon of gasoline
have been obtained by it's product"
The public is beginning to realize
this and that is one cf the reasons
why the demand for Peerless Fights is
greater than the supply"