A slippery business

Sir,

Good for Mr. D. M. Squires! I too looked at the Slip Group’s advertisement in Motor Sport of September and was unable to make much of it, though clearly the small photograph was that of a Mini.

I think that this type of pseudo-technical advertisement should be curbed and I myself took this firm to task for stating in their glossy booklet that “approximately 72% of petrol you buy is wasted overcoming friction and heat losses,” which of course is an over-all figure including the thermal efficiency of internal combustion engines, which tends to mislead people as to the possible gains in efficiency. I also queried them as to whether their product might adversely affect the operation of gearboxes’ synchromesh mechanism, but did not receive a conclusive reply.

It would be interesting to hear from the Group Public Relations Officer of Castrol, whose letter also appears in the October issue, why oil manufacturers do not add these “modern patent medicines” for the automobile engine to their lubricating oils, as according to the suppliers of some of these products, a very substantial improvement would be obtained!

J.R.B. Robertson.
Cullercoats.