Correspondence dated 27 June 1955

Summary

An item from the surviving correspondence of William John Sands.

Historical context

This item forms part of the surviving William John Sands correspondence and is dated 27 June 1955. It is preserved in the William John Sands Family Archive as evidence of Sands’s professional work and relationships. The accompanying transcript was produced by machine OCR and should be checked against the original scan before being treated as a definitive reading.

Catalogue description

Original correspondence scan imported from the Sands and Ferguson family archive. Source file: 19552706a.jpg.

Machine transcript — unreviewed

. Vatsy Frpudon Research a) Continuation SHEET No. 2 when sitting behind the wheel. This feature struck me quite forcibly because I have always noticed the amount of noise from a Wotkewsret when it passes me on the road, Another feature which I might mention is eriority in driver control, Although it may be a delusion, I get an impression that the Volkswagen driver is positioned well forward and better able to pilot his car, to exercise complete mastery over its steering wheel and generally to dictate its every movement, ect a skid on a Corrective locking ively because ing" feature of I have been told that it is extremel, greasy surface - mich more difficult than of the front wheels tends to remedy a skid momen the skidding motion resumes, I understand that the the Volkswagen is responsbile for this characteri There are great numbers of these cars all over the In 1954 there were 20,8)3 private cars registered for the first time, gen accounted for 2,155, equivalent to a little more than 10% of the tal. Ford and Morris had substantially better figures but the Austin total was 2,821 and Hillman with 2,049 came lower than Volkswagen, This marked popularity which the German car had won for itself is tending to expand rather than to diminish, In March of this year there were 327 Volkswagen registrations out of a total of 2,309, In April they accounted for 309 out of 2,233 registrations. The percentages work out at approximately 11, in each case, I can appreciate from these figures that the expression "menace" has a partioular meaning amongst trade coupetitors, but the motorist labels the car as a menace because it is always darting in and out of traffic streams, always straining to go just that mich faster than the next fellow and always giving the impression that it is going to get itself into trouble and other innocent parties besides. My impressions are based on the city and suburban traffic movements because the colossal growth in car population has created problems of traffic density in the Dublin area not so evident in other areas, I am convinced that the driver of a Volkswagen and the driver of a Fiat "1100" share a delusion that their respective cars are i at less speed than is actually the case, Power and rate of acceleration “alarmingly excessive by omparison with British cars as you well kmow but dri along in top gear there a deceptive impression that one is doing 45 m>.h. when the actual speed may be 55 m.p.eh. or even more, The Insurance Companies are really worried about the Volkswagen because it osting them a lot of claims losses, Apart from their nippiness assuming x then a virtue, absence of something solid at the front means of injury to dr is considerably greater than usual, i . When a Volkswagen is Over and over again I have been given astounding information about the