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).
Potential purchase and analysis of competitor vehicles, the Austro-Daimler and the Bentley.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 21\2\ Scan004 | |
| Date | 13th October 1925 | |
| X 3805 To C.J. from R.{Sir Henry Royce} c. to Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} EP.{G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer} R12/M13.10.25. AUSTRO-DAIMLER. X.1056 X.3805 The car which has some novel features, and which promised to compete with our Goshawk, is the 19/70 HP. Austro-Daimler, whose performance appears to be better than we get. The chassis price is £650 and if we could get trade discount, it would not be a serious matter to purchase one, as it will sell again, and we might learn something from it. If you agree to this we should like Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} or EP.{G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer} to get a trial run on it, to confirm that it is worth while. So far I have not heard of anything else that it would seem profitable to buy. Regarding the Bentley, the makers are evidently out to capture some of our trade, but we do not think we can learn much by buying a car because we see in which way it can be better than we are - that is - for high speed performance, because it has 4 valves per cyl. but we think it will be difficult from what we have seen, for this chassis to turn out well for silence, rigidity of frame, and may many other features, which you will see mentioned in the reports. R.{Sir Henry Royce} | ||