I have always wondered ...

["Slack Alice" Simon]

I have always wondered why the column has "Gas" and "Ignition" levers.

Not quite true - "Ignition" is obvious, but why "Gas"?


"Car and Classic" do weekly articles, one of which gave me a light bulb moment.   Possibly.


Talking of the Ford Model T, it describes the pedal layout: clutch on the left, reverse in the middle, brake on the right.    Gas and Spark on the column.

The article says that it wasn't until the Austin Seven came along that the Clutch - Brake - Accelerator layout on the floor became standard practice.


So was Austin nodding acquaintance with the most successful mass produced car of the time by labelling the column controls as he did, so Model T drivers in particular saw something familiar if

they switched to a Seven?


Or am I stating the bloomin' obvious that everybody else knows anyway?

[Tony Betts]

Hi simon,

I may be miss reading this?

But do you mean why have a column mounted throttle, 

or just the use of the word gas, instead of throttle for instance.

Thanks tony.

[Monsdonnet]

Herbert admired the US car industry, the 20hp was (I think) based on the Hudson, an example of which (I think) he owned....so using 'Gas' would have seemed quite logical to him ....perhaps....

[Mike Costigan]

... The article says that it wasn't until the Austin Seven came along that the Clutch - Brake - Accelerator layout on the floor became standard practice...

The Seven wasn't even the first Austin to have the 'standard' pedal layout; The Twelve from a year earlier certainly did, and I'm pretty sure the Twenty did before that.

As for the use of 'Gas', yes, I'm pretty sure it was the Hudson influence as Monsdonnet suggests; again, the Twelve and the Twenty used 'Gas' on the column controls, too.

[Howard Wright]

Hi Simon 

I’ve wondered the same.  It’s odd to have an Americanism on a quintessentially British car.

However what exactly would you put if not “gas”.  Throttle is best reserved for the accelerator pedal, fuel isn’t right as it is actually a petrol air mixture, 

It may also have origins in the fact that petrol was sold by pharmacies until well into the twenties.

Good question and I’d be interested in the replies.

Cheers

Howard

[Bob Culver]

Apart from Ford, by WW1 many American cars had reached a high degree of simple more or less standard rugged design, even more so by 1919. His Hudson was reckoned to inspire Austin to keep things relatively simple. So some aspects of the Seven are unexpected, like the torque tube plus open shaft combination. Maybe it was to avoid patents. (Here many rural "towns" and villages were very isolated over poor roads. Insufficent demand and too distant and rugged for the slow busses of the time so horse coaches were supplanted by "service cars", large rugged tourers which could pack aboard several with luggage on the running boards. The notably robust quality early Hudson was a much used make.)

["Slack Alice" Simon]

Both, really, Tony.

"Gas" these days is so American - it may not have been in the '20s.

And, apart from the starting of early cars, what real use is the hand throttle?

It isn't much good as a cruise control, and only a few of us have set it and then got out and pushed the car out of the mud, jumping in (or not) as traction is resumed.

[A G Wood]

“The article says that it wasn't until the Austin Seven came along that the Clutch - Brake - Accelerator layout on the floor became standard practice.”
Perhaps in the UK? Most sources credit the 1916 Cadillac 53 as the first car to adopt this layout, although in fairness some US car makers persisted with various idiosyncratic arrangements (cf Ford Model T) for a little while longer.

[Bob Culver]

Hi S A Simon

Can step the idle up to help avoid stalling when cold. There was no throttle connection with the choke as later cars. Warming cars up before moving off was considerd good practice until later times when it was found to be detrimental. With non multigrade 50 and colder winters many cars would ahve been cranked. And many continued the tradition, if only because could not afford a good battery.
A local chummy owner who used his car for local shopping and cranked it found the levers irresistable to children......Dont know how a Hudson would fare.... or the person cranking.

[Mike Costigan]

And remember the very first Sevens didn't have a self-starter, so it was useful to set the throttle open slightly when using the handle to start the engine. I use mine all the time to set a fast idle after starting, especially in the winter.