The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-09-12
40 COMET AUTOS GOING ID ANTWERP
One of Largest Single Export Shipments Being Made
 Ready Now

Decatur, IT,. September l1-Forty automobiles are being boxed for ship ment to Antwerp, Belgium, by tna Comet Automobile Company of Deca- tur and this is said to be one of the largest single export orders ever filled In one shipment in this country Ger talnly 1t is the largest ever sent from any factory in this line here The shipment is being made through the All Trading Company of Chicago and the automobiles will be distributed rom Antwerp to its various branches in other parts of Europe.
 STANDARD STYLE The cars which are being prepared for shipment are all of the standard Comet style and every car is deep maroon color, the exporter who was here deciding that that color would suit the foreign trade better than the usual dark blue or black While the continental European buy CTS would prefer the right-hand drive instead of the usual American left hand drive they are not so insistent on it as are the English buyers, so that the cars which are going to Bel would be made if for American trade.
 EXPENSIVE JOB
 Preparing car for export shipment IS an expensive matter. The cars are each fitted into huge water-tight toxes, built of stout lumber lined with watertight tarred spaper, each four teen feet five inches long, four and q half feet wide and nearly six feet high. The boxing alone costs sS5~ for each car and each occupies 385 cubic feet of space on the steamship.
 The freight on each car from Deca- tur to Antwerp, including railroad to New York and ocean freight to the point of destination, fs right at s575. so that it can be seen that freight charges and boxing come to about S650 for each automobile.
 PARTIALLY DISASSEMBLED - The cars are disassembled in a way but every single part /of each car is put into the great box in which the body is shipped so that when car iS to be transferred from Antwerp to any other part of Europe the single big box carries it all. Each part is numbered. tagged and listed as the car is first assembled and then some of the parts, such as the wheels, windshields and the like taken off for packing about the body, in the box so that each box contains a complete car, every detail being carefully recheeked as packed. SOM EREADY
 Already a number of these cars have been boxed and are standing on the factory shipping platform Workmen 'are rapidly getting still others ready and when the forty are prepared for shipment train of freight cars will be run onto the factory siding for them.
 Export business is steadily inoreas- ing and if the local company could be assured of a plentiful supply of ma tertals this branch of the business would develop rapidly.
 The same company for which this shipment is being made ask for twenty month to follow the first forty and the power morning and evening, but that the midday power always was no- ticeably less
 In automobile engines it is unlikely that all the effects of night air taken together would make difference or more than 5 per cent. if indeed so much, but this could easily represent two or three. horsepower and perhaps just make the difference between making some grade on high or not making it.
 So when you fancy your car is rum ming better in the cool of the evening you don't have to blame it on your own poetic state of mind induced by thoughts of Grays elegiac variety, The chances are the motor really is enjoying the fresh night air.