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).
Test drive report and feedback on car 58-GN, noting improvements and new issues regarding steering, carburation, and engine performance.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 18\3\ Scan382 | |
| Date | 5th December 1932 | |
| X 7960. To Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} Copy to Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} re 58-GN. Sg{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}13/E5.12.32 Thanks for Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}5/WJ.2.12.32. I have driven the car this last week-end and the steering is to my mind a very great improvement over anything I have driven before on a RR car. Naturally I want to give it further use before saying a great deal about it because just one week-end one does not perhaps meet the type of road where joggles occur worst, but I drove it altogether about 150 miles and, whilst it seemed to retain all its old good points, you seem to have eliminated practically all its bad ones. It is much more selective and appears to be free from joggles. Re semi-expanding carburetter. The car stood in an unheated garage Saturday night and Sunday night. I found on Sunday morning - Kennett found the same this morning - that one could not start the engine on the starting carburetter in the ordinary way but if, after using the starter carburetter, one turned it off and opened the throttle fairly wide the engine started, whereas on 19-EX the engine started quite normally on the starting carburetter. Can you explain this? The air silencer is of course a great improvement from the point of view of roar and noise. There is now a very noticeable 'flat spot' which gives the car a perceptible jerk. It seems to occur on the pick-up just above 30 miles an hour but it does not always do it. Was this not noticed at Derby? It is something which we could not of course accept as standard. It was not of course present on 19-EX and did not exist before on 58-GN. Exhaust System. The improvement in the 'chuff-chuff' that I complained of in regard to 19-EX seems to be very considerable. | ||