Bringing Home Comforts to Your Car

How to Offset the Rigours of Winter

VANITY FAIR'S OBSERVER

THERE is a peculiarity about motor cars in winter which is just now claiming the attention of all those geniuses whose business it is to provide us with better motoring. It is this: The engine, during the time it is running, must be cooled, and when it is not running, it must be heated. In those two facts, I think, lie most of the disadvantages and many of the really great improvements in winter motoring. The fact that the power plant, especially the radiator, must be warmed during its idle moments has been responsible for the invention and application of a large number of highly successful devices which promote greater ease in starting and operating our cars. On the other hand, the great heat generated by the motor itself when running has been the means by which motoring has been made more and more enjoyable until the closed car of today is really a marvel in its freedom from the discomforts which formerly accompanied the attempt to keep up one's motoring habits during the winter.

The heat created in the operation of an automobile engine represents a vast percentage of waste power. It is probable that future years will see an improvement in this situation through the designing of motors which will deliver to the driving wheels a far greater proportion of the power generated than does the present type of power plant. In the meantime, clever engineers are salvaging some of this power and putting it to work to enhance our animal comfort and the mechanical efficiency of our motoring.

The most valuable way in which this is being brought about is in the use of the heat from the exhaust in preheating the incoming charges of fuel and air in order to provide a mixture which will burn more rapidly and more completely and with less waste of precious gasoline. A great majority of the cars now coming from the factory are equipped with various kinds of devices for this purpose. The result will be that the 1921 cars will run more smoothly, more economically and with less of a tendency than their predecessors to form carbon deposits, to allow unburned gasoline to seep past the piston rings and dilute the lubricating oil in the crankcase and in other ways to lower the efficiency of the machine. This may sound dry and technical, but its importance to us lies in the fact that when this subject of preheating fuel and maintaining proper motor temperatures is thoroughly understood and developed and the friction of moving parts, which now takes up a great part of the power intended for the rear wheels, is reduced to a minimum, we shall be able to obtain our present speeds with motors of much less weight and power. This will mean cheaper and better motoring.

In the meantime, people whose cars are not equipped by their makers with some sort of mechanical means of getting better results from the present low grades of gasoline through the use of motor heat, may buy and have installed any of the numerous accessories on the market which will render this service faithfully and well.

Probably the most tangible benefit we have received from the use of motor heat, which formerly went to waste, is in the development of floor heaters for closed cars. This fine addition to motoring has actually brought the comfort of the home to the motor car. While many of the present cars are being built with Perfection or other well-known makes of heaters, there are any quantity of foot warmers and other accessories which fill a similar purpose available for the man whose machine has no heater of its own.

It is ruinous to a car to keep it in a cold garage. This is true not only of the radiator and water jacket in which water may be carelessly left to freeze over night, but to the body finish as well. However, the builders of winter accessories have provided well for the elimination of this bugaboo. Heaters burning special fuel, or operated by current from an ordinary electric light socket, are obtainable in great variety for keeping engine, radiator and garage warm. Windshield wings of many makes are available to protect you from the piercing winds. A number of companies are providing their cars with automatically operating shutters for regulating the temperature under the hood, while for cars not thus equipped there are hood and radiator covers of various fabrics of a neatness and efficiency not obtainable in former days.

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Winter motoring calls for a distinct change in motoring habits. Speed must be reduced for a number of reasons. Carburetors must be adjusted by expert hands. Oil must be changed more frequently than in summer and probably a different grade used, depending on your car's requirements. Washing the car must be performed with infinitely more care and you should by all means be equipped with anti-skid chains for all four tires.

Winter motoring nowadays is comfortable or uncomfortable, depending on the precautions we take and the accessories we buy.

We shall be very glad to talk this matter over with readers and to recommend accessories and schemes for outwitting old man Boreas.