MOTORING
National Motorways There is very little to criticise in the scheme put forward to the Minister of Transport by the County Surveyors' Society for the construction of seven special motor roads, as a foundation for any national system." The seven proposed are the North Orbital, Dartford, to just north of Hatfield ; London to Glasgow, by Scotch Corner, mostly parallel to the Great North Road, which is for so many miles a perfect example of what the principal highway of Great Britain should not be ; London to Carlisle, via Birmingham and Preston, running near the Holyhead Road as far as Birmingham ; Bristol to Doncaster ; London to Swansea by Reading and Bristol, which presumably will include a new bridge over the Severn ; Manchester to Hull ; and London to Southampton and Portsmouth. , The only suggestion that occurs to one on studying the map is an eighth connecting Southampton with Birmingham which would carry the interport traffic between the Channel and Liverpool.
A Well-reasoned Scheme The recommendations are based on the views of the Government delegates who recently inspected the German motor roads and the reasons they bring forward for the building of the seven are eminently clear and cogent. Like every road-user with any experience of special roads and a long-standing familiarity with the chaotic conditions that obtain on our out-of-date system—or rather lack of system— they have realised before anything else that no perceptible reduction in the accident rate is remotely probable until the main bulk of commercial traffic is segregated. It is not so much a question of providing special roads for fast travel as of relieving the existing highways of the steadily increasing flow of heavy transport.
The Essential Vision Points made in their statement which show how carefully and practically the thing has been considered, are first the economy that would be effected as against the reconstruction that is now going on piecemeal ; second that the new ways should be built as eomplete units and not in short lengths ; third that " the new motorways, together with the other arteries of trunk road value, should form a co-ordinated system for through traffic and (most important of all) that the whole work should be controlled by a time programme."
These recommendations from such a source, together with the Bressey Report and Mr. Alker Tripp's brilliant study of conditions (Road Traffic and its Control, reviewed lately here), show that we have experts with the essential vision allied to the practical knowledge that experience alone can give: Will proper advantage be taken of them ?
The New 12 Alvis The latest example of the famous 12,-h.p. 4-cylinder series of Alvis is, in my opinion, the best. Ten years ago or thereabouts the 12 Alvis, in 12-5o and 12-6o form, was one of the best-known British medium-powered cars made. It was not altogether " everybody's car " in that it was very fast for its power, not particularly smooth-running, Pretty noisy and, generally speaking, " hearty." What endeared it to its many fervent admirers was its livelihess and its response to the finer points of driving. Its fault was a very noisy gear-box. A 1926 Alvis doing 5o miles an hour On third could be heard coming a long way off.
Twelve Years After It was dropped from the list some years ago (I cannot imagine why—manufacturers do strange things at times), evived, overbodied f a short time, given a new form of gear, and again dropped until now. While the new one differs from the old in its modern manners, its silence and its smoothness, it resembles them in all the essentials. It is about ten miles an hour faster on top, and it has much the same enlivening characteristics, the same vigour and spirit. Generally speaking I do not like small or medium-sized cars, though I admire some of them highly. It is a question of taste and bodily ease. My preference lies wit'a the big ones, the 31 and 4-litres, with power to waste. In itself that is of no interest to anyone and I only mention it because the new Alvis is one of the very few cars I have driven that gave me nearly all the satisfaction I get out of the other kind. That is the reason why I do not really consider the car dear at the apparently forbidding price of £435 for the saloon and £445 for the drophead coupe. Apart from accommodation, you get most of the amenities of big car motoring.
The saloon is well-designed, well-finished and, within the prescribed limits, roomy. The seating is very comfortable and there is enough headroom, achieved, as is almost inevitable these conventional days, by a low-dropped floor and a shaft- tunnel. The engine has a bore and stroke of 73 by Ito, a capacity of 1,842 c.c. and werhead valves, the gear is very quiet, the change easy, both sets of brakes powerful, the suspension comfortable and the road-holding excellent. It is lively and fast uphill as well as on the level. I thought it an unusually interesting type of modern car.
Thirty Years Ago Not more than a mile away from the Henley-Oxford road lies a patch of English countryside that looks today as it must have thirty years back. The road that leads you to it is tarred, but that is the only difference I have been able to discover since I first came across it. All about you, on a gently sloping hill leading up to the foot of the Chiltern range, are fields just now golden with the ripened corn, distant woods, old, old hedgerows, stacks, barns, ancestral oaks. As you climb, slowly, imperceptibly, the picture widens to the horizon, westward to the Oxfordshire levels, southward to the river valley, ahead to the long line of beeches which clothe the sides of the hills to the east and north, a picture of that peace and colour which were once the special splendour of England.
Forgotten Peace It is not very big, this patch ; I doubt if the run across it is more than eight miles from one main road to the other, it contains one small village, and although that village boasts a petrol-station I have never seen it selling petrol. An occasional local delivery-van, bread or washing or groceries, sometimes a local car, the doctor's probably, or, if there is one, the squire's, make up the total traffic on any day of the year. Benson, a village most mercifully deserted now that they have by-passed it, lies at the foot of the long slope, Watlington near the other end. If you are from the west you get the best imr re ;sion of it, but it is almost as good if you arrive from the top of the hills. Then your way lies along the last turn to the left at the top of Aston Rowant Hill, by Christmas Common. From the beginning of the road downhill into Watlington you look straight, over the patch to the Berkshire downs. But that view has nothing to do with the real picture, between Watlington and Benson, which is forgotten England.
JOHN PRIOLEAU.
[Note.—Readers' requests for advice from our Motoring Correspondent on the choice of new cars should be accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope. The highest price payable must be given, as well as the type of body required. No advice can be given on the purchase, sale or exchange of used cars.]
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