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).
Letter to W. Cowen Esq. discussing the benefits of standardizing Rapson jacks and dipping headlights.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 39\1\ Scan028 | |
| Date | 16th November 1921 guessed | |
| RAPSON TYRE & JACK WORKS. CONTINUATION SHEET No. 2 W. Cowen Esq., if the car with your tyres, floats over the holes and pockets in the road. The tyres hold the road splendidly and the car seems to take the hills better than ever". Now to the jacks. Quite apart from the fact that I was able to conclusively prove under R.A.C. observation that it is possible for a child, aged 10, and weighing 5 1/2 stones, to raise your car with amazing ease from the bare rim to adequate wheel-changing clearance, without the use of blocks, grovelling, or anything of that sort, there is the testimony which can be given by Mr. Northey. The Rapson jack, and I say this in all modesty, has been held up by absolutely every motoring writer in this country as being easily the best in the world, and it is because you have such a magnificent car that I feel that whatever happens about the tyres and dipping headlights, you really ought to standardise a jack which is safe. No jack with an ordinary push-under head can possibly be safe, and it is only a jack in which the head is positively locked to the axle that can be termed to be safe, when people are entering and leaving the car whilst it is still on the jack. I would willingly go into the question of you arranging the hooks on your axle to suit yourselves, at your own Works, or, as an alternative, make any design of fitting to the instructions of your Chief Engineer. Further, if you wanted it, I would go so far as to make you the jack itself to suit the requirements of your Chief Engineer, but I do not think this is necessary, as the Rapson jack as already standardised is a sound engineering job. Finally there is the question of the dipping headlights. You, no doubt, are already aware that many of the Royal cars are fitted with this invention of mine, also that of the Prime Minister, and nothing could be finer than the standardising of this invention on your cars. The Committee on Lights have already declared it to be the most efficient device they examined over a period of 18 months, and I think if you could arrange for your Chief Engineer, to come out with me one night and see for himself, not only the anti-dazzle effect, but also what a God-send it is to be able to position the beam where it gives the best results, you would not be long in arriving at the conclusion that these dipping head-lights are an absolute necessity. In mist and fog, when ordinary headlights merely throw a white cloud in front of one, dipping headlights enable one to throw the light down and get truly | ||