From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Continuation of a road test report detailing the performance and issues with a Bentley II vehicle.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 111\2\ scan0435 | |
| Date | 5th January 1941 guessed | |
| - 2 - Continued:- Second gear was less noisy than some gears of the type I have driven but was nothing like as good as a Bentley II second gear, but overdrive was only apparent when one forgot to change into direct and dropped down to speeds in the neighbourhood of 20 or 30 miles an hour. The transmission was smooth up to about 70 miles an hour on the speedometer, which appeared to be considerably pessimistic when a good deal of roughness, worse than any I have experienced on these cars in the past, was noticeable to both front and rear passengers. Following are other general points which, had they not been present, would have left a much better impression:- 1. Starting from cold was bad by any standard, the car only being driveable after about five minutes patient fussing with the engine to keep it alive. Generally some four attempts were necessary to persuade it to run at all. When the thermostat cut out the car was quite driveable but even when the engine was warm there was a flat spot in the carburation when accelerating from low speeds. 2. The bonnet was a poor fit and on the first day out came adrift twice. 3. The layout of the instruments was such that one could never find anything when it was wanted. 4. The heater was noisy, and had insufficient range with the result that one had to take either a cold or turkish bath. Summing up one can say without the least trace of exaggeration that in spite of its heavy body, the car would get one about from point to point with minimum of fatigue and a maximum of comfort at a good average speed and on the other hand when the car was taken down the Ashbourne Sudbury Road and was thrown around corners with plenty of enthusiasm there was no doubt that all four wheels were glued to the road and the passengers were not thrown from side to side as one would usually expect on this particular run. - continued - | ||