The original motormouth
QUESTION
Why is the benchmark for acceleration 0 to 60mph and not over a set distance? Long before we had Jeremy Clarkson and Top gear, the world had ‘Uncle’ Tom McCahill (1907–75).
He had graduated from Yale University with a fine arts degree, but later owned Murray’s garage in new York City. He realised an auto-starved wartime public might be interested in factual articles on new cars, rather than just manufacturer advertising, and sold the idea to Mechanix Illustrated.
His first road test was written using his own 1946 Ford. He introduced the 0 to 60mph test as his measure of its performance and it became an industry standard.
His measurement was based on an average U.S. highway speed limit and the speed at which a car could safely enter a highway from a full stop.
McCahill also performed speed tests over a measured mile and hill tests, but it was the acceleration test that resonated with the public. The fact that 60mph was approximately 100kmph also helped spread it to countries using the metric system.
At first, the car industry was terrified of McCahill. He would borrow test vehicles, often posing as a photographer, and then take out the car for a punishing junket both on and off public roads.
‘I took endless pictures of company bigshots smiling happily with their new cars. After that I would persuade the proud executive to let me take the car for a short run into the country to get more flattering picture backgrounds.
‘ on these junkets I was usually accompanied by a company public relations man, whom I contrived to lose in one way or another while I borrowed the car “for a moment” and forgot to come back for several hours.
‘once I had managed to get one of the proud beauties alone, I drove the hell out of it and the results were the first professional automobile tests ever conducted for an American publication.
‘Sometimes I had a little explaining to do, like the time when I was towed back to the factory at the end of a rope with a completely blown engine; or again when a roof got slightly flat on top from trying the car’s upside-down approach.’ McCahill became the Mechanix Illustrated’s public face, and the industry realised that his review could make or break a product.
For example, when he drove the 1948 Futuramic 98, the first redesigned postwar oldsmobile, he said that hitting the accelerator ‘was like stepping on a wet sponge’. His robust prose paved the way for journalists such as Jeremy Clarkson.
He never met a metaphor or simile he didn’t like. The AC Cobra was ‘hairier than a Borneo gorilla in a raccoon suit’; the 1957 Pontiac’s ride quality was as ‘smooth as a prom queen’s thighs’; the 1959 Chrysler Imperial was ‘as loaded as an opium peddler during a tong war’; and the 1957 Buicks handled ‘like a fat matron trying to get out of a slippery bathtub’.
Jason Knowles, Sheffield.
QUESTION
In a TV ad there are two brothers, one of whom is suffering from heartburn and the other from indigestion. Is there a medical difference between these two ailments? INDIGESTION is a condition medically known as dyspepsia. It usually causes discomfort in the upper abdomen just under the breastbone.
A number of factors can cause indigestion, for example, over-eating, spicy foods and stress. Symptoms include low-grade pain, heartburn, nausea or flatulence. Indigestion is typically chronic and occurs off and on for most individuals.
Heartburn is a symptom rather than a condition. It may be caused by indigestion or by acid reflux, but heartburn does not cause indigestion or acid reflux.
Acid reflux is where acid made by your stomach escapes or regurgitates back into your oesophagus, causing a burning sensation close to your heart.
either your stomach makes too much acid, or the mechanism keeping it in your stomach after you eat (a muscular valve called the lower oesophageal sphincter) does not fully close after a meal. It is usually treated using antacids. If you are suffering persistent indigestion or heartburn, there might be a more serious underlying factor such as a stomach ulcer or hiatal hernia and you should consult your GP.
Marianne Shaw, Luton, Beds.
QUESTION
The Will Hay film Ask A Policeman (1939) and the Francis Durbridge novel Paul Temple And The Front Page Men (1940) include a facetious reference to ‘courtesy cops’. Who were they? THE term referred to police concerned with traffic offences in the Thirties after the introduction of laws, including the requirement to take a driving test, behaviour at pedestrian crossings, speed limits, dangerous driving offences as well as the first Highway Code.
It was also when the first traffic patrols were dedicated to policing the roads, and the emphasis was on advice and warnings.
In efforts to educate rather than prosecute, the practices were reinforced in 1937 when the Home office persuaded various police forces to adopt a system where all road users received advice for failures to comply with road traffic law rather than prosecution for the most borderline of transgressions. This included speaking to pedestrian and motorist alike through loudspeaker systems as a means of shaming through public censure.
For much of the post-war years it was back to normal, with traffic police given more free rein to advise or prosecute at their own discretion.
Today it is heartening that there is still some chance of a verbal warning from regular traffic police, rather than the faceless camera operators anonymously detecting traffic offences, with no quarter given.
D. J. Smith, Pershore, Worcs.
QUESTION
Does anyone recall an excellent BBC crime drama from the Sixties called Vendetta? Why isn’t it available on DVD? FURTHER to earlier answers, Tudor gates also published three tie-in novels for Brian degas’s great Mafia drama: Scipio (Corgi Paperbacks, 1967); Mister Scipio (Corgi, 1968); and, in 1970, Ancora Scipio ( published as a hardback by Frederic Muller). Ironically, this final title was based on the TV pilot.
Steve Pinder, Sheffield.
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