Between some OCR'ing (thanks to Tesseract and the NZ National Library) and a little manual editing I also add a text version at the end of this post. Click on the images to get the larger readable version...
The Quiet Ford.
Around and About on an Inter-Ocean Winner. News had just been cabled that a Ford car had won the inter-ocean race across America, and Progress began to feel interested. A day or two later, a Progress man met the Ford man, and asked him why.
"Why what?" said he.
"Why did one of your cheap, light Ford cars win that Inter-Ocean race against the field of big expensive boomers?"
The Ford man turned a quizzical eye on the journalist. "Ever been out in a Ford car?" he queried.
"No; my touring has been done in the big machines. ' ' ' "
Then you come out with me this afternoon, and you shall see for yourself why the Ford car wins."
The Progress man promised to go, but he was not especially enthusiastic. There never yet was a motor agent who wasn't prepared to affirm and insist that his car (the one he happened to be handling then) was the best on earth. Nor had the scribe seen any special reason to be enthusiastic about American cars. True, the Ford is not American, but Canadian. It's the same thing, or next door to it.
But the Ford man arrived to time and the run commenced. First of all through the crowded traffic of the city. It was a Saturday afternoon, and there were vehicles in hundreds in Manners Street and Willis Street. Very easily the Ford slipped through.
"Yes," said the Ford man, "she runs like a sewing machine, as you say. The Ford people set out to make a perfectly trustworthy and comfortable car, and of course they decided to eliminate noise. There are few things more disgusting to the ordinary man than one of those oldfashioned cars that crash and splutter like an avalanche. The Ford people determined that there was really no reason why an automobile should be as noisy as an aeroplane.
By this time the car was slipping along the Thorndon Esplanade. The way was clear, and the car flew. In these quiet cars you get a very inadequate idea of pace. The car spurted down the Esplanade at an easy thirty miles an hour; but it didn't seem more than half that. Here is a point of some importance to motorists. The ordinary policeman is not impressed or annoyed by the speed of a quiet ear. He will stop a crasher and splutterer that is making twenty miles an hour, and pay no attention to a smooth-running, silent machine that is going forty. With prejudice against the automobile still growing in the minds of the ignorant and thoughtless, tins is a point worth pondering.
"I suppose," said the Ford man, "that the quietness of the Ford has its effect with the doctors. But what really appeals to the doctors most is the cheapness and reliability of the Ford. It is a thing that needs explaining. You see, a good number of the other manufacturers have been putting a lot of money into heavy cars. They have spent enormous sums in advertising pretty dead stock sometimes. They've experimented along the wrong lines, and had to pay for it. They did not see, as the Ford people saw, that the days of the heavy, expensive car were numbered. Thoy went on trying to persuade the public to fool away more money in heavy cars, and did not see that the public had had enough. Meantime, the Ford Motor Company was working steadily along its own approved lines. It put in the finest special machinery the world could produce. Perfect machinery, however high the first cost, means economy of production. You see the result to-day. There is no car on the market equal to this one at anything like Ihe price. But the price of the Ford ear is an honest price both to manufacturer and purchaser. If you pay more for a car, you are paying for more than value received. People everywhere are recognising that fact, and that is why every month marks a great increase in Ford sales. More than that, you don't see second-hand Ford cars offered in the newspapers anywhere. The cars wear well and give satisfaction. Here is about as bad a bit of road for a test as you could find anywhere."
This was, of course, the famous and infamous Ngahauranga Road. There had been much rain and much heavy traffic. The whole road was a quag of mud which concealed ruts and holes varying in depth from three inches to a foot. Here and there, where some worse hole had made the road impassable, the authorities had tossed in cartloads of rough metal. The car could not choose its way, for there were carts to be met and passed. Sometimes the track was through the mud and over the ruts, and sometimes there would be a sudden turn over one of the patches of raw metal. Taken at decent speed, it was a sufficiently tough test for a car, as the Ford man said. Well, the ruts could be felt, but there was no especially uncomfortable jar or strain. The Ford car is buoyant — no other word so well describes it. It seems to skim over obstacles, to ignore them, to disdain them. That Saturday afternoon the car went through the mad stretch without mishap or hindrance, and never shipped an ounce of mud. The smoothness of the passage, having regard to earlier experiences in heavier cars, was quite remarkable. The Progress man put in a remark and a compliment, and the Ford man explained.
"Yes, as you say, the springs are fine. It is a case of quality as against apparent weight and strength. Ford cars are made throughout of the highest grade heat-tested Vanadium steel. The Ford Company is the pioneer of Vanadium in the motor industry, and the Ford vanadium formula stands as one of the strongest points in the company's equipment. Since the Ford people took up Vanadium, the eyes of the United States Government have been opened to its incomparable qualities. The frame of the new Davis torpedo is Vanadium steel. It is being used in the Navy for guns and other purposes, always with conspicuous success, and to the full satisfaction of the authorities. The striking characteristics of Vanadium steel are its abnormally high tensile strength, its extraordinary high elastic limit, and its remarkable dynamic qualities. By dynamic qualities, I mean anti-fatigue, resistance to crystallization, and all that. It is a quaint idea that steel can tire; but it can. In some of the other cars, the steel used gets tired soon, tired to death. Then you have broken axles, and all sorts of trouble. Vanadium steel does not tire appreciably. There was a test recently, a test of tensile strength. Approved crank shaft steel was used in each case, the best procurable. Carbon steel broke at 82,5001b5. strain, Nickel steel at 116,0001b5., and Vanadium steel at 203,8751b5. These figures were the actual result of a cold, scientific test. The test passed on to elasticity. The elastic limit of Carbon steel was 50,0001b5., of Nickel steel 90,0001b5., and of Vanadium steel 200,0001b5. If you think a bit, you'll see what that means. It means that Ford springs, being of the best Vanadium steel, will stand at least a hundred per cent, more strain, at least a hundred per cent. greater vibration, and at least a hundred percent, severer shock, than the springs of any other car on the market. The resiliency of these springs is almost startling to a man accustomed to springs made from the other sorts of steel. And you must remember that the greater the- resiliency of your springs, the less your vibration, the lighter the strain on your tires and your engine. Good springs mean economical running always."
"This is all very well," said the Progress man; "but you have said nothing of the cost of maintenance of your cheap car."
"What I have been telling you means cheap maintenance. To start with, it's impossible to break a Ford spring. Another thing: the Ford car is built entirely at the Ford factory; it is not what we call an assembled car. The parts are har monious units of the same scheme. That means stability and reduction of wear and tear. More than that, the Ford car is remarkably simple in its design and construction. There are few parts to get out of order. Add to that that the Ford car is very light. Every pound of added weight means extra cost of maintenance."
The Progress man thought these things over while the car ran smoothly out to Trentham, smoothly back through the sea of mud, and smoothly up the Ngahauranga gorge. The Ford takes its hills, as it were smiling. Presently, however, the journalist thought of a question.
"What about consumption of petrol?"
The Ford man laughed. "I was waiting for that," he said. "In point of fact, the Ford car holds a very extraordinary record. At the First Economy Test of the Denver, Colorado, Motor Club, a 20-h.p. Ford ear won first prize by covering 112 miles on a consumption of two gallons, two quarts, one pint of petrol — 41.16 miles per gallon. That is an exceptional record, but you can rely on doing from 24 to 28 miles per gallon under ordinary conditions.
The car was slipping comfortably over the blocks on Lambton Quay when the Ford man continued his parable.
"This," he said, "is the ear for ladies. It's wonderfully easy to drive. It has not the deadly inertia of the heavy car to complicate starting. It steers easily, and plays no tricks. I'd feel safer in a Ford car with any woman driving than I would behind a horse with a lady at the reins. But I think I've given you some indications of why the Ford car won the Inter-Ocean. Quality tells. The Ford car is built to give satisfaction. All consideration of profit is secondary. But it pays to give satisfaction to the public. The Ford Motor Company is doing very well. Our agents are everywhere, and in every country on earth the Ford car is heiping to oust the huge locomotives that belched along the roads a year or two ago. If there is a country on earth where the Ford car is not, the Ford Motor Company wants to know."