A coach-limousine

The Big Car of the Future ?

We are still apt to look upon the motor-coach and the private car as being entirely different. In point of fact the former is but a private car writ large. As regards performance and refinement there is little to choose between them ; while in the matter of price there is an enormous difference, for even large coaches cost very much less than a big private car.

In the days when enormous top-heavy chars-a-banc were one of the major terrors of the road it was considered somewhat infra dig. even to be seen travelling in one ; no one in his senses would have bought such a vehicle for private use.

Yet with the vast changes that have come about in the last year or two, why should not a private owner have a coach, instead of an ordinary limousine ?

Take a Commer passenger vehicle, the ” Invader ” Type 6-TK, for instance. For less than £1,000 one can buy a coach complete that is three or four times as roomy as the largest car on the market, every whit as comfortable and very nearly as speedy as those costing £1,500 or £2,000 for the chassis alone. For example, it has a four-speed gear-box with silent third ratio, a refinement still lacking on many makes of private car. It is capable, too, of high speeds with great safety. Few large chauffeur-driven limousines have a better performance. And lastly—an important point—the controls and the steering are as light and as easy as they are on a baby car.

What could one not do with the enormous body space available ? The ” occasional ” seats which figure on even the most expensive cars would in this coach-limousine become luxurious settees. References to ” leg-room ” of which so much is made in descriptions of ordinary cars would cease to have any meaning ; promenade room would be a more accurate term.

And then again there would be such scope for individual taste. The business man could have an elaborately equipped office on wheels. The holidaymaker could convert the saloon into an extremely comfortable and roomy bed-sitting room, and could make his coach far more comfortable than the best caravan, with the added advantage that there would be no trailer to make driving more difficult.

In short, there would be room for any sort of equipment, and the total cost would be less than that of a high-class limousine. Running costs, too, would compare very favourably with those of a very high-powered seven-seater.