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 discussing vehicle steering characteristics, namely under-steer and over-steer, in response to an article in 'Autocar'.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 170\3\ img130 | |
| Date | 22th November 1937 | |
| 1097. Oy. November 22nd. 1937. Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}/Gry.{Shadwell Grylls}1/AP. M.Olley, Esq., Vauxhall Motors Ltd., LUTON, BEDS. Dear Olley, Many thanks for your letter of the 17th, which has given us a lot to think about. With regard to the article in the 'Autocar', I originally supplied them with a chart showing that the average English car over-steers and that most American cars under-steer. Out of politeness to the English they said that the car that did neither was the best arrangement. We agree with you that we like under-steer, particularly on a straight road, but we should like the tail to come round if a corner is taken too fast. Since reading your letter, several of us have tried to see whether we can notice the difficulty of hitting off the right amount of rudder when going into a turn. Possibly because our steering ratios are higher than, say, the Oldsmobile, we did not notice any difficulty. Secondly, it has occurred to me that the sponge in the steering may counteract to some extent the decrease in rudder required once the car is in the corner, as the road wheels can turn slightly back towards the straight ahead position by merely further winding up the sponge at the bottom of the pendulum lever. When we get our Oldsmobile running again we will do some further experiments. Kind regards, Yours sincerely, | ||