Evening star., 1928-10-28
AMERICAN MOTOR CARS DEFY
TRACKLESS WASTES OFDESERT
Production of Autos In United States for
Nine Months Exceeds Total Produc-
ton of Last Year.

that served as a practicable. effective
route for the regular bus line that was
to follow. At first these desert cross
ings we're adventurous. Tribes OF Arab
bandits made frequent depredations.
But trouble from these narauders has
become practically negligible now. Pas
sengers and mail are carried safely In
American cars. to and from Bagdad,
with an almost monotonous fidelity tc
schedule.
"An achievement fully as extraordi-
nary as this was the trip Of q low
priced American car through that vast.
forbidding desert wilderness in central
South America known as the Gran
Chaco." For hundreds of years the re-
mote interior of this desert has been
utterly unknown. Fears of savage
Indians, or Of possible death from
thirst, had deferred the men Of sur
rounding countries from any attempt
to penetrate it. No one had managed
it, by any means whatever, since some
intrepid Spanish explorers managed to
force their way through in the middle
of the sixteenth century.
Then, one day not long ago. the
owner of an American automobile
Jumped into his car. In a Paraguayan
town, and chugged away into the
Chaco, surmounting all obstacles. con-
uuering all difficulties. To the amaze
rnent of the natives it made its appear
ance not long after in the uplands of
Bolivia, a steaming. dusty apparition,
battered but still very full of energy and
noise, victor over one of the worlds
most Stunned and dreaded areas. South
America resounded with praise of this
exploit. 1t created a really prodigious
reputation for, and confidence in, the
American automobile.
Ends PathIess Deserts.
"So-called painless deserts don't
seem to mean a thing to American mo-
tor cars. They'll make a pathl There
seems to be something Of the sturdy
American pioneer instinct even in our
mechanical products Indeed the hard
ships of our westward conquest OF q
continent have afforded an incompar-
able schooling for motor manufacturers.
Rugged mountain passes and tangled
swamps, icy snowdrifts and blisterine
deserts, clutching .quicksands and RAIN
soaked mud flats; what better training
ground could they possibly desire? Is
it any wonder that the deserts of Aus
tralia, the iungles of India, the forests
of Finland and the rocky highways OF
the Andes present no unfamiliar TRIALS
whatever?
But there are other. though perhaps
less spectacular difficulties. For one
thing, there's the exasperating shift Of
"the rule of the road" from country
to country. We are so accustomed here
to keep to the right that some OF Us
don't realize the rather wide prevalence,
elsewhere in the world, Of exactly the
opposite practice. This nearly gives
American tourists heart-failure trying
frantically to reverse their instructive
traffic reactions every time nationai
frontier is crossed.
"Where the rule of the road Is left
automobiles should, Of course, have the
right-hand drive. In some European
and Asiatic cities our usual left-hand
drive is absolutely prohibited, all OF
which complicates manufacturing meth
ods and wipes out many economies Of
standardized mass production.
"Often the American automobile
abroad encounters strange taxes, re-
strictions and regulations-quite apart
from import quotas" or "contingents.
The oldest method Of n1otor.car taxa
ton that we've run across anywhere Is
that obtaining In the principal city Of
a region transferred by the peace trea.
ties from one nation to another. Here
CONTINUED on Eighth Paee)