Les girls

Sir,

A few weeks ago I wrote to Smiths Motor Accessories Division to suggest that the money they paid to girl models to drape themselves, over or alongside various ears fitted with their instruments, might be better spent in their Research and Development Department in an endavour to provide instruments which really were “WELL WORTH LOOKING AT.”

I was constrained to do so having just read the Motor road-test of the new Ford Cortina in which the speedometer was found to be 10% fast at 30 m.p.h., 6% fast at 60 m.p.h., and the distance recorder was 3.5% fast! You, sir, will have already no doubt noticed the ridiculous petrol gauge fitted to this car which neither indicates “full” or “empty” or the gallons in the tank, not even an “F” or “E”!

I commented on this latter point to a North Country representative on the Ford stand at the Motor Show and he agreed in a typical N.C. manner that the petrol gauge was “bluddy-dafft.’

As you know, Smiths also make clocks and watches. I wonder how many they would sell if the best accuracy they could offer was a timepiece which gained ten minutes in every hundred!

Tadworth. WILFRID O. TURNER.

[We are all in favour of more accurate speedometers and distance recorders and more reliable instruments but—spare Les Girls!—ED.]