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 track performance testing of E.R. Hall's car, model B-35-AE, comparing it to a streamlined saloon.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 155\1\ scan0147 | |
| Date | 11th July 1934 | |
| To Eg. c. to Nor. c. to E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. to L. c. to EV.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} E.R. Hall's Car - B-35-AE. We took this car down to the track last week with its final body on it, to check its performance before we altered anything. From the attached photographs it will be seen that the coachwork is about as scanty as is permitted by the regulations. With the cut-out open the best lap we could obtain was 90 m.p.h. with the cut-out closed 88.46 m.p.h. Under similar conditions B-23-AE, the streamlined car, lapped at 94.4 m.p.h. with the cut-out open and 92.4 m.p.h. with the cut-out closed. In order words, by attention to scientific streamlining a Saloon car holding four people in comparative comfort has been made 4 m.p.h. faster than a stripped racing car. This shows that so little is known about the subject that even experienced racing motorists such as E.R. Hall have no knowledge of the best shape required for speed on an open car. We took Hall's standard engine out of his car and checked the power on the Test Bench, and the results show that, though on the low side, it does not come outside the variations we should expect on production. To raise the lap speed of Hall's car to equal that of B-23-AE requires an increase of 10 H.P. It is therefore clear that with this body we are throwing away H.P. | ||