To use a slang phrase, "They will not stand the racket." However "stunning" they look on asphalt and macadam with their low, rakish bodies, resplendent in red and polished brass, on country roads they are very frequently failures.

A thirty horse-power foreign machine costing ten or twelve thousand dollars, accompanied by one or more expert mechanics, may make a brilliant showing for a week or so; but when the time is up, the ordinary, cheap, country-looking, American automobile will be found a close second at the finish; not that it is a finer piece of machinery, for it is not; but it has been developed under the adverse conditions prevailing in this country and is built to surmount them.

The maker in this country who runs his machine one hundred miles from his factory, would find fewer difficulties between Paris and Berlin.
The temptation is great to purchase a foreign machine on sight; resist the temptation until you have ridden in it over a hundred miles of sandy, clayey, and hilly American roads; you may then defer the purchase indefinitely, unless you expect to carry along a man.
Machine for machine, regardless of price, the comparison is debatable; but price for price, there is no comparison whatsoever; in fact, there is no inexpensive imported machine which compares for a moment with the American product.
A single-cylinder motor possesses a few great advantages to compensate for many disadvantages; it has fewer parts to get out of order, and troubles can be much more quickly located and overcome.

Two, three, and four cylinders run with less vibration and are better in every way, except that with every cylinder added the chances of troubles are multiplied, and the difficulty of locating them increased.

Each cylinder must have its own lubrication, its ignition, intake, and exhaust mechanisms,--the quartette that is responsible for nine-tenths of the stops.
Beyond eight or ten horse-power the single cylinder is hardly practicable.