MOTOR CARS FOR THE NEW YEAR

What to Look for at the Motor Shows Soon to be Held in New York— Changes in Engine and Body Design

WITH the approach of each recurring automobile show the wiseacres shake their heads and announce that, surely, there will be nothing new to see except, perhaps, some small improvement of detail, some new eccentricity of painting or finish which has little vital bearing on the motor car as a whole. And with each successive exhibition these same dispensers of gloom are confounded. It is true this season. Six months ago you could have found a dozen men at any spot where those who think they know the automobile are wont to congregate who would have told you that the last word had been spoken in mechanical design and that cars would never be built in any essential respect different from those perfect creations of the vintage of 1915. However, truth will out, even about automobiles, and the fact of the matter is that no six months or no twelve months, at any rate, in the history of the automobile, since the earliest formative seasons, has been more productive of important new things, real changes in mechanism and arrangement, than that period which will come to a close when the doors of the National Automobile Show in Grand Central Palace swing open on December thirty-first and the first visitors pass the portals of the Automobile Salon in the ballroom of the Hotel Astor on January third.

The outstanding changes of the year; the things which the intelligent visitor will look for at the two exhibitions, fall naturally into two classes, both of important bearing on the place of the automobile in modern life. On the one hand there have been mechanical modifications, foreshadowed last season but only brought to fruitage this year, and, on the other hand, there have been modifications in body design and seating arrangement which amount to radical changes of both theory and practice. Although examples of both of these types of innovations for the present season have been pictured and briefly described in these columns as, according to the entirely indefensible custom of this one industry, they have been brought out from month to month ever since June, bearing the 1916 label, still the shows will bring them together in such varied forms that a little generalizing on their nature and meaning will hardly fall into the dangerous category of reiteration here

The Motor Department of Vanity Fair will answer any and all questions with regard to motors and accessories. If there is anything you would like to know definitely, write to Vanity Fair. This department is conducted by an expert who will give you accurate information.

THE most impressive thing, from the mechanical point of view, that will mark these exhibitions, is undoubtedly the great increase of cars with the multi-cylinder type of motor. For the first time, twelve cylinder cars will be on view in a show of this kind and there will be five or six makes of this type, while the eights, which were the cynosure of all eyes at last year's shows will be far more numerous than they were then. That the popularity of the motor with more than six cylinders is a real thing and to be reckoned with seriously, is amply shown by the fact that more than twenty per cent of the cars shown will fall into this class. This is rather remarkable when it is remembered that there were no twelves at last year's show and that, at that time, the eights represented but six per cent of the total. The six cylinder type shows a falling off, on the other hand, with some thirtyeight per cent as against forty-nine last year, while to the dependable and ever useful four belongs the rest of the field.

ALTHOUGH it is not to be supposed that the multi-cylinden motor will drive the four, or for that matter, the six from the lists, its percentage after a full year of trial for the eights and about six months for the twelve, is impressive and goes to show that the type has been tried on the road and not found wanting in the hands of owners, where, after all, the merits of motor car design must ultimately find their test. Certainly those who have done much driving or riding in the 'cars of many cylinders will talk to you as long as you will let them about their flexible smoothness of operation, power, silence, acceleration and all the other pet qualities that the proud motorist likes to boast about to his friends. They have "the punch" and they have unquestionably, as has the wonderful magnetic drive, made it far easier and pleasanter for women to drive cars which find their motive power in gasoline. In passing, it is safe to predict, the fame of its performance having gone abroad, that the aforesaid magnetic transmission will be more an object of curiosity, even, than it was last year when people marveled but were not quite convinced.

ANOTHER important trend of motor designing in this country is manifested by the fact that of the cars which will be on exhibition at the Palace nearly seventy per cent will have cylinders of less than three and one-half inch bore. This is a reversal of last year's figures, due in part to the coming of the multicylindered cars, to be sure, but chiefly going to show that the advantages of the small bore, long stroke, high speed type of engine have taken a firm hold on this side of the Atlantic, as they did a year or two ago abroad. They are not likely to be forgotten and the day is long past when one may expect to see many big bore or nearly "square" motors, except for special purposes and in commercial cars.

A reversal of previous proportions has also taken place in the matter of cylinder castings. While last year nearly seventy per cent had integral heads, this season about sixty-eight per cent have separate heads with their manifold advantages when it comes to taking down the engine. Battery ignition is another feature which shows a big gain and for the coming or present season nearly seventy-four per cent according to the most complete figures now obtainable, will have ignition of this type. Almost half of the cars shown will have vacuum feed to bring the gasoline from the tank to the carburetor while more than ninety per cent of the machines will be fitted with a three speed gear box, four speed transmission apparently having fallen into disfavor.

Indeed it will be found on only about eight per cent of the cars on exhibition. This is due perhaps to the attainment of sufficient flexibility in other ways, although it may be noted that at the Salon, where only cars de luxe will be found, as in other seasons, there will be more four speed transmissions than on the other side of town. If you like to travel very fast for long distances and to drive a car of high power which is yet not used for racing, this type of gear box has its undoubted advantages. One motorist known to the writer owns a very powerful chain-driven car with a special baby tonneau body. It is his practice to drop into third when he strikes an unusually steep hill and even them he can take at about sixty miles an hour.

To leave for a moment the discussion of the detailed changes of the year; the exhibition at the Astor will be, in itself, something of a departure although it is to be held on familiar ground and under accustomed auspices. The novelty lies in the fact that at this exhibition, which has always been known as the Importers' Automobile Salon and has been the abiding place of all the foreign makes of motor car that are sold in this country, it will be this year, numerically at least, more an exhibition of

American cars of quality than of imported machines. At least nine makes of American cars will be shown there, some of them at this exhibition only, while two Italian, one English and one French car will represent the countries now at war. In addition the coach work of the leading American carosseries will be shown and, if one may judge at all from the past it will be worth going a long way to see. This year the Salon, it is said, will have another new feature, the entry of a number of cars by a woman as an owner. This will be, perhaps, the first time that a car owner has made an entry in a show, rather than a car maker. Who can say that motor shows will not ultimately become competitive and fashionable, if this plan is developed, like the dog shows or horse shows or cat shows of today?

ALL the interesting features of the year at either exhibition will not be of a mechanical nature, by any means, although there are enough of these in detail to fill a volume. To mention just one example before turning to body design, one of the eight cylinder cars has a thermostatic device attached to the motor which automatically shuts off the water supply when the engine is cold and increases its flow as the motor warms up. By means of this ingenious arrangement, one need never fear a cold or stiff motor when making a start in winter weather, for a few revolutions with little or no cold water coming through the cooling system limbers up the engine to a point where normal operation—and cooling—become easy.

Some of the most interesting things which the motor shows will bring together for study and comparison are the many variations and modifications in body line and arrangement for which the year now in its dotage is lesponsible. The new things are found both on the exterior and the interior. Some are so different from traditional design as to be startling, some are comparatively of a minor character, but all are worth looking at with attention. They mean something, for the American car designer has now passed the point when his annual new model is different from its predecessors merely for the sake of being different. It is changed because he believes the innovation is good and that it will add to the beauty or the utility of his product. Generally he is right.

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Certainly he is in the right this season when it comes to the matter of free treatment of seating patterns, superstructure and window regulation. Each of these factors in the motor car shows marked liberation from previous traditions and conventions this season. You no longer have to sit exactly parallel with your neighbor, for example, in many a sedan and runabout body; you do not have to stay in the tonneau or climb on the running board to make a change to the front compartment, for last year's habit of dividing the front seats has become still more general; in some cases you can swing your comfortable bucket chair around to face in any direction you wish or tilt it to suit the whims of your particular framework. In other words, you are no longer chained to a seat arbitrarily placed for you at just this point in the car, at just that angle or in precisely that direction.

IT is so with the part of your car which shelters you from the elements, if it happens to be an enclosed model. In dozens of cases the whole closed part can be neatly put away when summer comes, leaving you a touring body or a roadster as the case may be. When this is not the case, with surprisingly little effort you may slip this catch, drop that window and fold down an apparently rigid top leaving the car partly or wholly open at your pleasure. The car builders have not been slow to realize the merits of the new body type, brought out this summer and illustrated in a previous issue of Vanity Fair, known as the " touring limousine." They have adopted it, root and branch, and have also adapted it and added another modification, the "touring sedan." The type is one sure to be welcomed because, while it sacrifices nothing in the matter of appearances, it adds much in potentialities of comfort. It is one step farther along the sensible road already trodden by the landaulet, but it is by no means the same.

In the touring limousine or touring sedan the sides, and not the rear half of the roof and back, are the flexible parts of the superstructure. The panes in the doors, those next behind them and the final sashes which connect with the rear wall of the car have as much glass in proportion to woodwork as possible. In addition, each or all can be lowered completely out of the way and out of sight. In this way, as can be imagined, the car is at once a fully enclosed limousine or snug sedan and what is in effect a touring car with the top up, save that it has a permanent roof and a firm back in place of the customary mohair or khaki. This design gives protection without confinement, air without exposure. Moreover, it has a peculiarly rakish and enticing look, especially when one or both sides is completely open and the full effect of solidity combined with freedom is attained. Many cars of this type are going to be seen on the roads and streets this season and their popularity is not at all likely to wane when the warm weather comes again, for they carry with them not the least suggestion of that stuffiness which is the bane of the ordinary closed car in Summer.

Three and four passenger roadsters will be much in evidence at the shows. Modified boat line bodies mark the touring cars and the clover-leaf arrangement, combined with a strongly launch-like exterior, will be seen at not a few booths. Low hanging, long lines, rounded surfaces are the very hallmarks of the cars of 1916. Somehow they look better groomed than ever before.

OF the thousand and one accessories and an accessory, to borrow the picturesque phraseology of the Arabian treasure book, there is not space here to speak in any extended way. Suffice it to say that they are more useful as well as more numerous than in any of the twenty-odd years in which the automobile has been abroad in the land. Foot muffs for chilly days, neat car heaters to ward off the winds of winter, more compact and inconspicuous telephones from tonneau to driver's seat, little shields that keep the sparks from one's cigar from flying, smoking sets, vanity cases, locking devices, headlight dimmers, tire tools, luncheon hampers; these and hundreds more are ready to make the shopping trip or the tour to the South more delightful, more free from any inconveniences than ever before.

The Motor Department of Vanity Fair will answer any and all questions with regard to motors and accessories. If there is anything you woidd like to know definitely, write to Vanity Fair. This department is conducted by an expert who will give you accurate information