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).
Strongly worded letter advising against the use of the Bendix Drive, detailing its unreliability and potential damage.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 40\6\ Scan033 | |
| Date | 23th May 1922 | |
| R.R.A. 25 25m. 12-20-20 40849 INTER-OFFICE CORRESPONDENCE ROLLS-ROYCE OF AMERICA, INC SPRINGFIELD, MASS. X3592 Oy2 - G 23522 May 23, 1922 Dear Hives:- Re: Bendix Drives X3592 I have yours Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}5/LG11.5.22, and will reply in detail. I will treat it as confidential as you suggest, except that, in order that it may help us in our future actions (as your letters do to an extent which you can scarcely appreciate) I will take the liberty of letting L.J.B. read it, for his own information only. He will be, I can assure you, quite as discreet as I should. First then, as regards the Bendix drive, our advice from the American point of view, would be not to touch it with a ten foot pole. I wrote F.H.R., you and E.P. about this on Nov. 18 last year. If any one thing could damn the new R-R in the eyes of the American public more than any other, it would be the fitting of a cheap, semi-satisfactory device such as the ordinary Bendix. It would give a foothold for adverse criticism which no competitor would be fool enough to neglect. It is only used by the cheapest cars in the U.S. and its prevalent use with a C.I. flywheel leads to the inevitable scrapping of the flywheel teeth within two years. To tell the public that it works better with a steel ring gear does not carry conviction. The big spiral spring is constantly breaking. If one's battery runs low or the ignition is too far advanced, the teeth butt and jamb, and then to get your car moving it is necessary to ask your friends to alight, push you to and fro till you get the high speed dogs engaged and then "jog" you backwards in gear till the starter pinion teeth consent to come out with a dull sickening thud. A nice thing to happen to a Rolls-Royce in Main Street, Springfield, or Broadway, N.Y. for instance! I have used Bendix Drive starters for over two years, and the firm here has done the same. Allow us therefore to earnestly implore you to renounce that devil and all his works. | ||