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 coachbuilder Park Ward & Co. Ltd. discussing chassis stiffness, coachwork rigidity, and steel panelling.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 5a\4\ 04-page224 | |
| Date | 2nd February 1935 | |
| X5840 Exptl. Dept. Ha/R.5/KW. 2nd February, 1935. Messrs. Park Ward & Co.Ltd., 473, High Road, Willesden, London, N.W.10. For the attention of Mr. Falconer. Dear Sirs, Many thanks for your letter of the 30th January, together with the Coachbuilding report which I have read with the greatest interest. I am going to give you some figures of the stiffness of American cars ready for the road and with their bodies removed from the chassis. From these you will see that to attempt to build a rigid car by attacking the chassis only is quite impracticable, and that this is not how the Americans get their rigidity. They make the body strong enough to do its share of the work and then tie the frame and coachwork together. I think the figures will speak for themselves. This does not mean that we are satisfied with our frame, on the contrary we are fully alive to any deficiencies they may have, but whatever we do we cannot make a satisfactory motor car without your assistance. If the French coachwork is similar to English coachwork except for the steel panelling, and yet does stand up to the French roads better than the English product - and one can assume that it does because they are always travelling on these bad roads - then there is something to be said for the steel panelling. Yours faithfully, FOR ROLLS-ROYCE LIMITED. | ||