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).
Extract from the 'Commerce' magazine describing a new automatic transmission device called MONO-DRIVE.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 136\4\ scan0086 | |
| Date | 1st January 1933 | |
| x2061 Extract from "Commerce" 1933 "A new Device to remake Auto Market" In the list of new products, methods and devices offered this month is one which departs from the field suggested for this department. It has such wide possibilities, however, that it should prove to be of general benefit, although the possibilities of its adoption in industry are few. This device is a mechanical gearshift and transmission of such potency that it can recast the entire future market outlook of the automobile industry. It is the biggest gift to the automobile industry since the self starter. Its inventor, OSCAR H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} BANKER, of Chicago, calls it MONO-DRIVE, a name which falls somewhat short of describing all the advantages which a harried driver will discern in it when he suddenly finds himself freed of the complexity of fourteen separate motions necessary for present driving, and his car operation simplified into three:- Starting the car and keeping it in motion (right foot on accelerator). Stopping the car (right foot on brake). Steering the car (both hands on wheel). This takes driving down to the bare essentials beyond which no driver could venture a desire. The car must be run, it must be steered, it must be stopped. As far as the driver is concerned nothing further remains. There are no gears or transmission for him - no pedals or levers to operate. They are as absent from the driver's mind as is the differential gearing on the back axle that permits one power-driven wheel to turn a corner faster than the other. Henceforth it will be as needless and indeed silly to have transmission appurtenances to worry the driver as it would be to give him a set of levers to adjust the speed of a rear-wheel upon making a turn. Driver is Car's Master. The device is so simple that the layman wonders why the engineering world did not fall upon it en masse years ago. The man who did, Banker, makes use of a power that has always been there and always will - torque reversal. He applies it to an admittedly better type of transmission than is now used, the planetary type, and while eliminating all the foolish false motions of driving, actually produces a more dependable transmission system. When the driver takes his toe off the gas pedal and acceleration ceases, torque reversal has taken place. Gear-shifting is rendered that quick and simple. The driver is master of his transmission at all times, even though he may not know what the word means. A test drive made in Chicago during the American Legion convention when traffic was difficult showed the extreme flexibility and simplicity of MONO-DRIVE. With the motor idling at a stop light it is necessary only to step on the gas, lightly or heavily (even down to the floor) to get smooth and rapid motion. To reach second, the foot is eased off the accelerator and torque reversal instantly makes the change without consciousness on the part of the driver. The same is true of high. | ||