Consuming Interest
By LESLIE ADRIAN IHAVE just bought a new baby car. As I drove from the dealers', the indicators failed and a new unit had to be installed. After two days, I found the brakes needed adjustment, the bonnet leaked and rain dripped on to the dashboard shelf. There was also a bad rattle beneath the floorboards. A friend who bought the baby model of another maker at the same time has been told it must have a new differential.
No one expects these cheap, mass-produced cars to function with the faultless precision of the costly hand-made job, but obvious things like brake adjustments and a faulty indicator mechanism should surely be spotted during fac- tory tests. How efficient are these, I wonder?
If you are buying a new car, I urge you to give it a trial run before you sign delivery docu- ments. Like the rest of the customers collecting cars the other day, I just signed and drove off, assuming the car to be as good as the demon- stration model I'd tried in the showroom. New cars are, of course, covered by a guarantee of six to twelve months according to the maker, but the salesman's preamble rarely mentions that this only covers replacement costs. You are still liable for the high labour charges.
It was these soaring charges that determined me to forsake the seductions of the second-hand car market and break modestly into the new car bracket.
I shall keep the new car for eighteen months and sell it, I hope, before I have begun to spend money on repairs. If car prices continue to rise and purchase tax remains unchanged—a prob- able supposition—I can expect to drop not more than £30 on today's purchase price.
Before the war, a car would drop hundreds of pounds in price once it had been registered, but today high prices and a growing demand have kept second-hand values up. The trade is con- fident it will last. Some salesmen even suggest to would-be customers that a car on HP is a good capital investment, and it is remarkable how some of the baby cars have kept thpir value. I have been checking prices for 1953 baby cars in good condition. A Ford Popular, originally £391, averages £295 today. The Morris Minor, at £530, brings £435, and a £476 Austin A30 £300. Because of fantastic garage rents in big cities more people are leaving their cars outside. It seems to make little difference to the resale price if the car is sold within two years. Bigger cars drop more quickly in price, presumably because they are usually bought as a business expense by firms who can afford to change them fre- quently. These 'business purposes' cars make up 80 per cent. of the cars on British roads today, Mr. R. N. Clarke, of the Motor Agents' Asso- ciation, tells me. Today there is one car to every twelve persons in Britain; three years ago the figure was eighteen; but we still have a long way to go to equal the American figure of one car to every three persons.
At this time of year second-hand car prices begin to fall off slightly. By December they take a sharp dip when owners decide to get rid of cars before the New Year licensing. In January there is a slight spurt, also due to new licensing. Bad weather and the Budget bring them down to their lowest figure in February. After the Budget they begin to climb to a June peak. So buy a car in February, when second-hand prices are lowest and there is no delay in waiting for new models. Sell in June.
The new British Egg Marketing Board assumed trading powers this month with a pan of pub- licity and the exhortation that we all try to eat more eggs. I need little persuasion. For the busy cook eggs in their many guises are an ideal meal.
In provincial hotels and suspect restaurants I have learned to play safe and choose an egg dish au nature. What I do want, though, are fresher eggs, for I cannot remember when I last bought one that was really fresh in London. Instead there is a distinctive London egg : one of quite definite taste and appearance. Its shell is faintly mottled and grey : its flavour strong and tangy. It bears no resemblance to the freshly boiled farm variety, but it is just not bad enough to be returned to the shop as uneatable. So I was hopeful when I read that the Board is to grant a new II' licence which will alloW producers to sell their eggs direct to the retail shop if they wish. This was illegal under the old Government scheme. But there is a snag. The producers operating with a 13' licence will not be able to claim the Government subsidy which today averages threehalfpence an egg. The 'fresh from the farm' eggs we will be able to buy in the shops will obviously be expensive.
I still regret that the new marketing regulations went through, because they subscribe to the ob- noxious principle that what is in the producer's interest must necessarily also be in the con- sumer's. The new arrangements may possiblY be more efficient, but I am prepared to lay 3 large bet that the public will more than pay for the efficiency in higher prices. What is needed 111 this, and in most other branches of agricultural marketing, is an independent marketing body, 00 the lines recommended by the Royal Commission about ten years ago. That report was shelved; and though its arguments against giving power to the farmers' ring are still as valid as they were then, the Government has given way to a pressure group—just as it would have done, but for the adverse publicity, in the Shops Bill. It is possible that the Board will speed the handling by the packing stations. This, I believe, is the solution, but there is little the Board call do under existing conditions, I am told. Much could be done, however, to instruct retailers to look after stocks of eggs more sensibly. TO° often you see them displayed in hot sunshine 01: stored in stuffy corners of a shop. As a rule 1 find fishmongers' eggs are most carefully Pre" served—presumably because their shops are usually cooler.
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