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).
Increased weight of a Park Ward Saloon due to a special folding luggage grid.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 88\2\ scan0067 | |
| Date | 2nd November 1934 | |
| To Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}.......From Ev.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} Bowering see me Pu T c 9 11-c rRmt 15 1 Rv 18 0 21 2/2L 1-13 - 1-21 Lp{Mr Lappin}'s Cat Re: L.P.Star 4B4. File Ev{Ivan Evernden - coachwork}7/GC.2.11.34. Dictated 1.11.34. The weight of the Park Ward Standard Saloon, full of petrol and with standard equipment is 32 cwt. 1 qr. This is taking a typical example - B.50 BN.{W.O. Bentley / Mr Barrington} You say that 4B4 weighs 33 1/2 cwt. so the amount added by LP{Mr Lappin} for his special boot with folding luggage grid lid{A. J. Lidsey} at the back is 1 1/4 cwts. This is a terrible lot, and is really not justifiable. This sort of thing always happens when a customer asks for a departure from standard. The coachbuilder knows that he has no means of testing the new design before delivering the car to the customer, on the side of safety in the matter of strength, if knowing all the time that the back of the body has got to be capable of the luggage hanging out as a cantilever on the back. LP{Mr Lappin} is the only case where we have had to fit this folding luggage flap on the Bentley. We did not want to give it to him but he insisted on it. You will get the same on 5B4 and I see no reason why that body should be lighter than 4B4 for that reason. Unfortunately, the body for 4B4 was made a long time ago, and is now almost finished so that we cannot alter it, although I would very much like to alter the construction of the boot.lid{A. J. Lidsey} which forms the luggage grid. It is these folding flaps at the back of luggage boots which do more to put up the weight than anything. It was pointed out to you yesterday that if anyone wants one of the original type Standard Saloons we can only build the same by doing so as a single order without jigs. What is more, he would not get the sheet metal bottomsides, and the cast Elpex pillars, as they are unsuitable for the dimensions of that body. If that smaller body were built with the present construction, it would weigh only a few pounds lighter than the present standard body. In other words, the increase of weight of the present body over the original one is not due so much to the increase in size, as the increase in the weight due to the method of construction. The present standard body is about 70 lbs heavier than the original. I do not consider this to be bad, remembering how much we have strengthened the job. Ev.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} | ||