The First Commercial Passenger trip to the Bays?

First published in Ngā Ākau ki te Tonga Southern Bays number 7 2011/2012

This account of an experimental commercial passenger trip to Island Bay by an early ‘service car’ appeared in the New Zealand Tablet 29 January 1903

THE MARCH OF THE MOTOR.

A service car in 1905, in Taupo, but apparently of a very similar type to that described by the Tablet H P Mourant. PAColl-4522-1

One of the first things to strike one on even a brief holiday trip through our larger towns is the rapid advance which the much-talked-of motorcars are making in public favour and public confidence.

A year or two ago they were often heard of but rarely seen. Now all our cities can boast the possession of at least two or three, and in some centres, such as Wellington, their appearance in the streets is so common an occurrence as to attract nothing but the merest passing notice.

Most of the cars now running belong to private owners and are run solely for their personal benefit or pleasure, but in Wellington the City Council has recently received an application; the first, we believe, in the Colony for such a car to ply for hire, and an actual trial trip of this passenger car has now successfully taken place.

The Wellington Post of the 20th inst. gives the following particulars of this historic trip: ‘The first passenger motor-car, carrying ten passengers and a driver, made a trial trip to Island Bay this morning. The run from the Courtenay Place end of Kent Terrace to the Island Bay Hotel [Trent Street – ed] was accomplished in twenty minutes, and the return journey occupied about the same time.

The car ran very smoothly and took the grades on the low-speed gear. This particular car was not built as a passenger car, but for the purpose of a delivery van, and was subsequently converted into a passenger car at the factory of Messrs Bouse and Black. This car is of eleven-horse power and is built for slow running. It is easy to steer, can be brought to a standstill very quickly, and has reversing gear which enables it to run backwards. It is a handsome-looking vehicle, and has been converted to its present use in order to accustom traffic to this class of conveyance. The car will shortly run for pleasure and other trips through the city.'