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"•Yep. All It Cost Was
Gasoline and Oil"
o
NE thousand miles, and
all it cost was the gasoline
and oil! No more railroad
trains for me. as
long as the old boat runs
and the roads are good !"
Thus many an owner cries in jubilation
after finishing a tour in his car.
And far be it from the intentions of the
present scribe or this magazine to say
that a thousand miles in an automobile
isn't far more pleasant and profitable,
even at the price, than a similar number
spent in a plush chair being showered
with cinders! But Truth is mighty
and will prevail over the car owner, if he
but look her in the face.
Who thinks a thousand miles of touring
costs only gas and oil is fooling himself.
Let us take off the lid and look at
Truth where she nestles in carburetor
and tires, in wheels and bearings, in the
insurance man's pocket and the repair
man's maw!
54
The COST of
MOTORING
1000 MILES
by CRClaudy
EDITOR'S NOTE: Haven't you
considered a trip to Niagara Falls, or to
Seattle, or to Florida at some time or another,
and drawn back because you could
not figure the costs exactly? Well, here
thev are, all marshalled into a formidable
battalion for your inspection.
I run a little six-cylinder boat which
cost a thousand dollars. You run a big
eight or twelve or seventeen or something
which cost, let us say, two thousand
dollars. We start off together on
a thousand mile tour. At the end of that
tour, if we look honestly at our expenditures,
we have spent, you and I; a heap
more money than we paid for gas and
for oil. I have paid out $95.25 and you
have paid $166.00—paid, none the less
surely though we may have each of us
started with much less than that in our
pockets.
What ? Most assuredly I am not
counting hotel bills and what we have fed
the living machine! If we take eight
days for the tour and average seven
dollars a day for food and lodging, newspapers,
cigars and an occasional dampening
of our whistling apparatus with soda
water, then we spend fifty-six dollars
each in addition to the former amounts
named.
Prove it? That's easy. The trouble
with the average car owner is that he
doesn't look beyond the expenditure of
the moment. He doesn't figure the
things which cost money on a tour be-