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).
Impracticality of bonnet shutters and suggesting an improved, more easily operated design.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 12\7\ 07-page118 | |
| Date | 30th July 1930 | |
| x7260 S/W. To Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} X1085 Sg{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}10/D30.7.30. Re: Shutters in Bonnets. Brooklands report In Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}2/MJ.22.7.30 it says: "The trouble is that most of our cars have shutters not louvres fitted, and most of our customers are too lazy to use these shutters in the bonnet". It has seemed to me for a long time that the type of shutter which we adopt is partly the reason for their not being used more extensively. It is, I think, a survival of a type of shutter used by R.R. many years ago, and to my mind has several disadvantages:- (1) It is very difficult for the coachbuilders to deal with from a painting point of view. In fact, I understand that they have to take the shutters to pieces to enable them to paint them. (2) When it is open it shows a nasty-looking gaping hole which does not look well. (3) In order to operate them, i.e. open or close, it is necessary to go to a considerable amount of trouble, especially if, as was often the case, one finds it necessary to operate them whilst the car is actually being used. I remember last year in France this happened to me. One has, as you know, to stop, open the bonnet, find a spanner, undo a nut, open the shutter, do up the nut again, etc. It seems to me that it ought to be possible to fit a much more easily operated shutter in bonnet sides, somewhat on the lines of the type used by coachbuilders in scuttle ventilators. This type would entirely overcome objection No. 1, and largely overcome objections Nos. 2 and 3. I think we all must agree that if coachbuilders had continued during the last ten years to fit the old type of scuttle ventilators, which could only be operated by stopping the car and operating them from the outside, we should have had cause to complain. I suggest that this matter is worthy of investigation and that you should rig up one of your experimental cars with improved shutter ventilators of the type in question and which, by the way, I have often seen on cars of other makes. Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} | ||