Motor Road Transport For Commercial Purposes
(Liquid Fuel, Steam, Electricity)

168 MOTOR ROAD TRANSPORT cylinder engine. The total weight, with driver and passenger, was about 17 cwts. The only priming required when. the engine was cold in order to enable it to take up on paraffin was one or two table-spoonfuls of petrol, and a small cup conveniently placed outside the bonnet allowed this to be done without inconvenience. The disadvantages of the priming and the initial “ smoking ” cannot easily be overcome, but are not really serious drawbacks. The success of the design lies in the faet that a proper gas is apparently made under all the varying conditions that occur in practice. The running of the car was considered to be equal in many respects to that on petrol, while it was possible to put the engine through tests which. could not have been so successfully borne if it had been run on petrol with the ordinary light fuel carburettor. An instance of this was the engine’s power of hanging on at low speed under a heavy load. The car was driven on the high gear up a slope almost to a standstill, yet the firing was perf eetly even, and although the engine was by no means new there was no knocking or pinking of any sort, and the power given off was exceptionally high. After a change of speed, whether made early or late, the engine answered the throttle lever immed- iately, and no fuss or popping was experienced at any time during the test, nor did the exhaust indicate incomplete combustion by smoking. At the bottom of a hill down which the car had been allowed to drive the engine with the electric current switched off, the same conditions were maintained. In order to arrive at some idea of the consumption of fuel under everyday road conditions, and without special tuning for a low figure, the car was stopped en route at a village shop and the main fuel tank tap turned off.