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Rh unaltered, so that to France, in the person of M. Levassor, must be given the honour of having led in the development of the motor-car.

Progress in the improvement of design was slow until the year 1894, when a great impetus was given to the French industry by the organization, by the Petit Journal, of a trial run of motor vehicles from Paris to Rouen. The measure of success attained. by the cars caused considerable surprise, and in the year 1895 a race was organized from Paris to Bordeaux and back, a distance of 744 m., when the winning vehicle covered the journey at a mean speed of 15 m. per hour. From that date onward, until 1908, racing played an important part in the development of the motor-car; in fact, it is not going too far to say that, up to 1904, it played a vitally important part therein. The effect was a rapid development in speed, efficiency and reliability, and others besides the sportsman and the individual seeking for new sensations were attracted towards the new vehicle. Racing was not indulged in in England or Scotland, the authorities having no power to close the roads for the purpose.

EB1911 - Motor Vehicles - Fig 3. Rolls-Royce Pullman-Limousine.png

In July 1902, Mr S. F. Edge, driving a 50 h.p. Napier car, won the Gordon-Bennett Cup in the course of the open race from Paris to Vienna. This trophy has played an important part in the history of the motor-car. It was offered for competition among cars, entered by recognized National Automobile Clubs, no more than three cars being permitted to represent a country, and every car had to be built entirely in the country of its origin. The length of the race had to be not less than 500 kilometres (310 m.). The first two races in 1900 and 1901 had been won by French cars and, as these contests had been run concurrently with the big city-to-city races, the importance of the Gordon-Bennett race was overshadowed. But it stood out in bold relief when an English car wrested the international trophy from its French rivals in 1902. The Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland (now the Royal Automobile Club) at once secured parliamentary sanction for the use of certain roads in Ireland for a limited period, and proceeded to organize a race worthy of the issue at stake. The race was won by the Mercédès car, the latest production of the famous house of Daimler.

The Mercédès car set quite a new fashion, for it showed advancement in a large number of its mechanical details, and many of these details were either copied or used as the basis for radical changes in previously-existing designs. So far as British makers were concerned, the Mercédès fashion was allowed to predominate, but some of the older French makers were less willing to follow the lead of the great German house. This fact assisted the British makers to forge ahead in their competition with the French. But the great factor in the triumph of British motor engineering arose from the fact that, in England, there was a great wealth of knowledge concerning the properties of steels and steel alloys, and that knowledge, which was advancing all the time, was turned to such good use that it is safe to say that, in only the very best of French cars is the same strength and efficiency obtained from the same weight of metal as would be used in the construction of quite a number of British cars. Lightness of moving parts has led to increased engine efficiency and to economy of fuel, whilst the inert parts of the mechanism—the frame and other fixed details—by being lighter, call for a smaller expenditure of power to overcome their inertia. Apart from the employment of special steels for motor-car construction, in which England took a leading part, many improvements in design and method have originated in Great Britain. For instance, the multiple-disk clutch, which permits a car to be started without shock, is an English invention, as are the detachable wheel, the spare wheel and the six-cylindered engine. The latter, introduced by the Napier Company and employed extensively by them, by Rolls-Royce and others, has exerted a great influence upon British tastes, because it created a growing dislike to noise, one of the consequences being the rapid development of the silent car.

The representatives of Great Britain in the Gordon-Bennett race of 1903 were selected by means of a series of eliminating trials, and in 1904 and 1905 races were held annually in the Isle of Man for the same purpose. In the years 1906, 1907 and 1908 races were held in that island with such limitations on fuel or on the diameter of the cylinders as were calculated to encourage the development of small but efficient transmissions, and it has been conceded generally that these races served an extremely useful purpose.

Concurrently with its development into a reliable, silent, odourless and smokeless power-propelled vehicle, the motor-car gradually came into more general use. It no longer appealed only to a few but gained converts daily, and its final triumph came when it began seriously to displace the horsed vehicle.