MOTOR-CARS
In 1886 Daimler produced his motor-bicycle, and by 1891 his motor engine was adapted by Panhard and Levassor to other types of vehicles. The French were thus the first to perceive the great possibilities of it, and by 1894 the motor-cars already in use in France were so numerous that the first sporting event in the history of them—the 760 miles’ race from Paris to Bordeaux and back—was run.
THE “OLD TIMES,” 1888.
From a painting by Alfred S. Bishop.
The following year Mr. Evelyn Ellis brought over the first motor-car to reach England, a 4 h.-p. Panhard, and a little later, Sir David Salomons, of Tunbridge Wells, imported a Peugeot. In that town, October 15th, 1895, he held the first show of cars—four or five at most—in this country. Then began an agitation raised by a few enthusiasts for the removal of the existing restrictions upon road traffic. A deputation waited upon the Local Government Board, and the Light Locomotives Act of 1896 was passed in August, legalising mechanical traction up to a speed of fourteen miles an hour, the Act to come into operation on November 14th.
For whatever reason, the Light Locomotives Act was passed so quietly, under the ægis of the Local Government Board, as to almost wear the aspect of an organised secrecy, and the coming of what is now known as Motor-car Day was utterly unsuspected by the bulk of the public. It even caught the newspapers unprepared, until the week before.
But the financiers and company-promoters had been busy. They at least fully realised the importance of the era about to dawn; and the extravagant flotations of the Great Horseless Carriage Company and of many others long since bankrupt and forgotten, together with the phenomenal over-valuation of patents, very soon discredited the new movement. Never has there been a new industry so hardly used by company-promoting sharks as that of motor-cars.
“MOTOR-CAR DAY”