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).
The 3,000-mile continental test of an all-steel body on chassis B-56-MR.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 90\5\ scan0054 | |
| Date | 8th September 1935 | |
| B56BN{W.O. Bentley / Mr Barrington} To Sq. A Hdr. c.c. to Mr. C. c.c. to Mr. P. c.c. to Mr. Hy.{Tom Haldenby - Plant Engineer} c.c. to Mr. Ex. c.c. to Mr. EV.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} 3,000 Miles Continental Test of All-Steel Body on Chassis B-56-MR. When we took over this car it had an all-steel body fitted, mounted on Silent-Bloc bushes. We observed that the front end wing movement was very noticeable. We fitted the latest type of bumper bar and this made a great improvement, so much so that it was certainly no worse than the average standard car fitted with the same device. During the run we made a point of driving at high speeds over bad stretches of road encountered, with a view to giving the body a test of maximum severity. The pave roads encountered in Belgium were on the whole moderate in surface; the roads in Germany were good; the roads in Austria were excellent in stretches but bad in one or two sections; the by-roads in Hungary were consistently bad. We did not find any road surfaces which showed up body noises worse than the pave material encountered around Versailles and Paris, and also on the Boulogne-Abbeville road. As the first example of an all-steel body, produced with the minimum of tools, we think that the results obtained were astonishingly good. The only deterioration which we observed in the steel structure of the body itself were cracks on the scuttle panel from the bottom of the windscreen pillar. We could notice no difference between this body and the standard construction body with regard to booms or amplification of chassis noises. | ||