With motoring historian Bob Montgomery.
SALAD DAYS: The early motorist faced confusion about which fuel and oil to use. This wasn't helped by the naming of the various motor spirits available. They fell into two main types: a light benzine or a coal-tar derivative. The former was produced by a London oil-refining firm, Carless, Capel & Leonard, in 1890. It named its new product "petrol" from the French word pétrolé, meaning kerosene or paraffin oil. Years later it developed a more volatile spirit named "gasoline".
The alternative to petrol was a coal-tar derivative developed by the English engineer, Lanchester, called "benzole" or "benzene". Confused? Well, early motoring is full of stories of fuel tanks filled with the wrong product. Similar confusion existed about lubricating oil, most of which had been animal fat-based until the advent of the automobile.
One such story concerned a Major Nugent, who acquired his first car, a 4½hp De Dion, in 1902. On one journey he found "very little oil in the crank chamber, and that I had no spare charge. In the innocence of my heart I filled up with salad oil and started the engine. At once dense clouds of greasy, black and evil-smelling smoke rose from under the car. The faces of my friends, who had been grouped in an appreciative circle round the car, grew grave, and one by one they silently stole away to a discreet distance. Nothing, however, happened beyond an extremely bad smell, and so I started on my return journey to Dublin." Early motorists rarely lacked initiative even if their mechanical knowledge left much to be desired.
LEARNING TO DRIVE - 1905 STYLE: Seamus Brennan may be determined to reduce provisional driver numbers, but he can take succour from the fact that things could be worse. An account by James Dwyer of Cork from 1905 shows his own haphazard attempts to learn to drive.
The owner of a motor tricycle before graduating to a Beeston-Humberette, he recalled: "What bothered me most about learning to drive was lack of confidence. I received very little instruction, and was faced with taking the car out by myself, or waiting several days for an instructor. I felt like a little boy with a new toy, and made up my mind to drive it or break it. The latter seemed much the more likely, but fortunately it bore the test well. Selecting one of my friends for the trial spin, whom I considered to have no nerves, I broached the subject cautiously to him. He was only too glad to have a drive in a motor car.
"We started all right on our first speed. The next step was to change up. This I did, but missing the second speed altogether I put it in top, and not having the engine running fast enough we stopped right in the middle of the street, completely blocking the traffic, which happened to be very thick at the time, as it always is, of course, when anything goes wrong. We had to get out and shove her to the side of the street out of the way of a tram before making a fresh start, to the great amusement of a considerable crowd. However, profiting by my experience, we proceeded without further mishap."