"Pre-Selector"

If Britons liked blatant slogans (which Britons do not) they might have opened London's annual motor show last week with: "The Gear Shift Lever Must Go!" Ten of the 26 British exhibitors showed cars not equipped with gear shift levers but having at the centre of the steering wheel a minute gadget called a "pre-selector."

Driving such a car in "high."he British motorist will set his preselector for "second" or "first," knowing that sooner or later a hill or traffic pause must come. When it does he merely throws out his clutch and is shifted by a mechanical thingumbob into the gear which he has "pre-selected."

Paradoxically the new Wilson Pre-Selective Gearbox which triumphed at the London Show last week is only a great and suave improvement on Henry Ford's ancient "planetary transmission" of immortal Model T. Last week the 8-h. p. British Ford was not pre-selective, had a gear lever of conventional U. S. type. From France came Andre Citroen's latest, a car with floating power"--by permission of Walter P. Chrysler who has leased the French rights of his moteur flottant to "The Ford of France."

In general the London Show marked a British trend up from the 5 h.p. "baby car" adolescent vehicles powered from 10 to 12.

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