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).
Rationalization of car structure, comparing different construction methods, and the future of frameless and fram-body designs.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 178\2\ img089 | |
| Date | 11th January 1940 guessed | |
| - 3 - It is a matter of great personal regret to me that this business of rationalizing car structure has now been put into other hands so that I cannot hope to get back into this struggle. Actually, American cars are built in the same way as R.R. cars of around 1927. In other words, a frame is constructed by one department, while a body is being constructed by another, and the two never meet so that there is no intelligent development whatever of the body structure as a whole. In general, the bodies for new model cars are only obtainable about one month before production. The job I was to have done and which is now handed over to Bob Schilling, as an offshoot of the vehicle development section which Bob took over from me in 1937, consists of a body-frame development programme by which the Fisher Organisation is brought to realize the fundamentals of structural stiffness in sheet metal constructions and to apply these principles, not only to their own body structures, but into the collaboration between their structures and the frame. The question of whether a car should be built with a separate chassis or without is rapidly becoming immaterial, since it merely represents the preference of the shop for assembling automobiles from below, as at Opel and as projected at Vauxhall, or assembling from above on a pair of side rails which are afterwards made part of the body structure by any appropriate means. I think you will see, therefore, that on sedan cars the distinction between frameless and fram-body jobs will rapidly disappear. On cabriolet cars, however, supplementary means, perhaps in the form of an X-member in the body with a raised floor, will be necessary to provide structural stiffness. In other words, I do not know at the moment whether the improved American constructions will take the form of frameless constructions or otherwise. At the moment, however, it appears that economy will decide the modified frameless constructions represented by G.M. cars, which is distinct from similar construction on the Lincoln-Zephyr and Morris, by the fact of providing a "Wheelborrow" for the nose of the car. G.M. will certainly continue with the "wheelborrow" because of lower insurance premiums. With regard to your question about body rumble, the most constructive work on these lines has been done by my late gang (continued)..... | ||