Business & Finance: British Automobiles

U. S. automobile manufacturers, provided with facilities for enormous output, are carefully studying foreign markets these days as an outlet for their production. One of the most promising foreign markets is Great Britain. The removal of the duty on imported cars there should prove an undoubted stimulus to the sale of U. S. cars. Nevertheless, there are several difficult handicaps still to be sur- mounted by our automobile exporters. First of these is the high Brit- ish horsepower tax of almost $5 per horsepower—or $100 annually, even on a Ford. The tax yields the hard-pressed British Treasury about $65 million each year, and amounts to enough on each car to restrict con- siderably their widespread ownership. Moreover, gasoline retails at about 45 cents a gallon, which makes running expenses high. U. S. cars are built without especial consideration for their consumption of gasoline, where British cars are especially constructed to be economical of fuel. Yet U. S. cars have several positive advantages. They are better on hills, they are cheaper and easier to repair, and they are much less expensive to begin with. Lastly, U. S. makers will probably introduce the popular part-payment plan for purchasing.