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).
Clarifying a misunderstanding regarding the 10,000-mile testing procedure for a 20 HP chassis between the Experimental and Sales departments.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 148\5\ scan0006 | |
| Date | 18th June 1926 | |
| X3994 To Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from BJ. Experimental Dept. BJ11/E18/6/26 At a conference this afternoon of C., Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}, PN.{Mr Northey}, CWB and BJ we discussed Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}2/LG17/6/26. I shall be interested to see the scheme which you are preparing in regard to keeping a record of what will be done and what is now done in the Experimental Department and the cost. Any scheme of this sort will be most helpful to us all. With regard to the 20 HP chassis which is now being prepared for Sales to run 10,000 miles, there has evidently been some misconception in regard to this. When CJ wrote CJ1/E28/8/25, stating that the 10,000 miles' trial in France did not give us all the information we required and suggesting that 2,000 miles of road travel should be driven by a representative of Sales Department and that the car should be driven for this test in London traffic and that the car should be driven by a representative of Sales Department in the Alpine Passes, you wrote that you considered a better arrangement would be for Sales Department to have a duplicate of the 10,000 miles test car so that they could test it in any way they wished. CJ replied, CJ5/E30/9/25, that he agreed to this to enable Sales to carry out the programme that he had suggested. We thought it was clear from this correspondence that the intention was that these tests should be made simultaneously and not that Sales should have a car built for them to test after you had made the usual 10,000 miles test in France and the parts had been standardised. I understand that to-morrow you are sending to Sales a 20 HP car for them to test for 10,000 miles but that this car is different in many respects from the car which you originally had to test in France and that it has been improved and modified and that many of the parts on it have been standardised for production, although there are some few parts which are new and which have not been standardised. I quite agree that under these reversed circumstances the use of the Sales 10,000 miles test has been greatly reduced and that in this case there will be no necessity to complete probably more than a few thousand miles to test the new parts which you have introduced other than those that have already been standardised. | ||