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Motor-Propelled Vehicles 323 Induce them to realise that a motor-car can be built like a sewing-machine, and you’ll win out.” The agents were so impressed by the manufacturer’s enthusiasm that one-half of the first year’s output was purchased there and then. They assumed the responsibility for their disposal. What is more, their experience vindicated the manufacturer’s imagina- tion to the full. The public were magnetised by the cheap car, and the first year’s production fell short of the demand. Within two or three years of the completion of the factory, 75,000 cars were turned out and sold during a single year, and the 100,000 mark has long been passed. While British manufacturers have not yet suc- ceeded in emulating the American producer’s example, there is every indication that decisive effort in this direction will be made. It would not be surprising if the tables were turned upon the imaginative and energetic American manufacturer. He may yet experi- ence the full effects of being undersold by a British car turned out by the hundred thousand. There is a prevailing opinion that the Ford car is the cheapest vehicle upon the American market. This is a fallacy. In that country competition for the market of the cheap car is only just commencing. In Britain this era has not begun ; it has been postponed from circumstances over which the manu- facturers have had no control. When the whole- hearted assault is made to capture it, then a new era in the history of the motor-car will have dawned, and the self-propelled vehicle will come to be regarded as more indispensable to our social and industrial welfare than it has been hitherto.