Evening star., 1927-11-27
MOTORING
BY WILLIAM ULLMAN.
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truly until very recent date, the
owner of an automobile was sup.
posed to give it something of his
personality. Conditions have changed
rather radically since those halycor
days. Cars have personalities of their
own, personalities that are created
in the intensive heralding Of THEN
virtues by their makers. Instead oi
absorbing the characteristics of its
owner, the modern motor car that
is stressed in a particular manner
transforms the owner.
Take the case ofa the car that is
hailed as particularly fast. Is it not
true in at least a sufficient number
of cases to be convincing. that the
buyer feels compelled to hold up the
manufacturer claim? If car is
reputed to have marked accelcrative
qualities, how many drivers who own
it can resist an impulse to show all
others how truly it possesses this
virtue?
Then there is the car that will
"outclimb anything on wheels. y
When its owner attempts to put it
to this test, is he seeking conhrma-
ton Of this claim for his own bene-
fit? Perhaps at times he is, but the
odds are in favor OF his trying to
show his fellow driver.
The why" Of the conduct of au-
tomobile drivers is AL interesting
subject to certain social psycholo-
gists. The average motorist is so
concerned with the fact of it that
he seldom has time to go into the
details of the why"
This is easy to understand. When
one is driving along. striving hard
to conduct his car with safety. and
another motorist cuts recklessly in
front, it is too much to expect ones
reason TO triumph over ones emo
ton. One cannot look into the
causes of the other mans conduct
when ones sense of deccncy is so
flagrantly outraged.
For that reason, summary Of
the why's" developed by the social
psychologist may help explain to a
cat many iIolollS 1919 tIlC
uneXplainable conduct of their fellow
drivers.
Appointment of a committee by
the President of Austria to collect
funds for the erection of a memorial
to Siegfried Marcus, Austrian engi-
neer, revives again the question:
Who invented the automobile? In
America, where the automobile has
reached its fullest expression, the
motor car is regarded as purely an
American invention. But how does
this coincide with the facts?
The answer to the question de-
pends very much upon how one
chooses to define the word "auto-
mobile" If one means a vehicle
capable Of self-propulsion, one can
go back as far as 1870 to find the
first automobile, for in that year
Nicholas Cugnot, a Frenchman, de-
signed and built two road carriages
that propelled themselves by steam.
Oliver Evans, Philadelphian,
achieved practical success in the
same way few years later.
Steam wagons" occupied the at
tention of many inventors during the
first quarter Of the nineteenth CEN
tury on the continent and in Eng
land. particularly. Apart from the
fact that they had no horses hitched
in front of them, they did not re-
semble the automobile as it now is
known.
The first vehicles that might be re-
garded as the lineal ancestors of the
modern automobile appeared in the
United States in the early Cos. And
from these machines. so scorned and
Knocked at in those days, have come
the superb automotive creations of
today.
1t may be true that the automo-
bile was invented in Europe, but
certainly to the United States must
go the largest measure of credit for
its development into the most useful
of individual transportation
the world ever has known.
In more and more cities automo-
tive trade groups are establishing
plants for the purpose of junking
old cars. The step is being taken
TO assure that used car which has
been rated as a junk assumes this
character instead of continuing to
be used car and plague to the
dealer.
The dealers are getting into the
business of junking cars, they say,
because if the situation is left to in
dividual outside enterprise, cars that
they have sold as junk keep coming
back to them as used cars. They
reason that the one way to prevent
this costly practice is to establish
their own salvage plants where the
disassembling of all worthless cars
is made absolutely certain.
Once car enters this yard it
never will leave again as motor
vehicle" says the spokesman for one
dealers salvage organization which
expects to dispose of 5000 junk cars
its first year of operation.
To close observers the plan ap-
peals as one that will be step in
the solution of the ever-troublesom
used car problem.