Article from 'The Autocar' magazine titled 'Light Car Talk' discussing the author's car experiences and carburettor performance.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 160\2\ scan0005 | |
| Date | 8th August 1914 | |
| 200 THE AUTOCAR, August 8th, 1914. Light Car Talk. By Runabout. My Fickleness! I DID not keep my last car a week. Chorus of readers, “Please tell us frankly what was the matter with it.” There was nothing the matter with it, but I was so impressed by its merry acceleration that I complimented the managing director of the company handling it in this country. When he had recovered from the shock of meeting a satisfied professional critic, he gasped faintly, “It’s nothing compared to our Grand Prix model!” So picture me clinging timidly to the wheel of a low blue beetle, weighing about 800 lb., which jumps from a standstill to 40 m.p.h. in about as many yards, and rockets up all its main road hills on top gear. I am enjoying the experience, because memory tells me that the racing engine of to-day is the touring engine of to-morrow. I have almost forgotten what speed is since the editorial fiat went forth—“Runabout!” “Sir?” “Nothing over 1,400 c.c. till further notice, please!” Consequently, the merry little Mathis is reviving ancient and sinful memories galore, and making me smack my lips with pleased anticipations of the 1915 Let me note that I do not press for a faster maximum speed for the light car; its weight sets a limit in that direction till our roads become passable once more; all it needs is a decided increase in vivacity and flexibility. A Carburetter that does not Choke. Most motorists, excepting those whose chauffeurs stand all the garage racket, have served their apprenticeship in patience with the modern automatic carburetter on mildly chill mornings. A friend of mine has a garage at the base of a short 1 in 10 grade; and though his stud includes cars ranging from 80 h.p. down to 8 h.p., there is not one of them can clamber out into his drive until he has raced the engine freely for a full minute or run it light for five minutes. Unless he warms up all the metal adjacent to the carburetter, the engine chokes on cool mornings as soon as the accelerator is touched. I have just begun to sample the German-made “Marvel” carburetter. For some mysterious reason it never chokes. Choose a cool morning, start the engine up, instanter perform a kind of chess-knight’s move into | ||
From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).