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).
Financial implications and customer objections of including a luggage grid with the rear spare wheel carrier.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 68\3\ scan0121 | |
| Date | 10th October 1927 | |
| HS{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} (handwritten) X8600 (handwritten) To B. from BJ. (struck through) Copy to BY.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} Copy to Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Rear Spare Wheel Carrier. BJ12/E10/10/27 We have been looking into the possibility of including a luggage grid with the rear spare wheel carrier. To enable you to see the position I enclose copy of Sg{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}16/M14/3/27. So far we had agreed to pay for the necessary extension pieces with cross tube at the back of the frame, the cost of which was £5.16.0 per chassis, or, say, £3,000 per annum. You will notice that this expenditure was only to enable the wheel to be carried at the back. If we were now to include also a luggage grid free of charge, it would bring the total to £15.8.8 per chassis, but if we did this, we should also have to include free of charge a side Wheel Carrier at £2.15.6, bringing the total to £18.4.2 per chassis, which would represent our giving away over £9,000 per annum. In our present financial position it would be practically impossible for us to do this, much as we should like to be generous. Our difficulty is that a certain number of customers do not require luggage grids at all and we must be in a position therefore to supply chassis either with or without luggage grid. In charging extra for a luggage grid we could not supply the grid to some customers free and charge others, but it would be impossible to insist on a customer paying for a luggage grid that he did not require. Even if we gave the grid away, we certainly should have difficulty with a certain number of customers who strongly object to having grids on their town cars. They consider them ugly and a disfigurement to a car with an otherwise beautiful appearance at the back. Do you think under the circumstances that you could find time to overcome this difficulty, which would cost the Company £6,000 extra, in the same manner as you have overcome so many of our difficulties in the past? I feel sure you will appreciate that we have every wish to fall in with your suggestions, and will not mind my pointing out how expensive this would one would prove if it were adopted. BJ. Enc. Copy of Sg{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}16/M14/3/27 | ||