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 future re-orientation of car design, focusing on aerodynamics and chassis improvements for high-speed cruising.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 24\1\ Scan036 | |
| Date | 12th December 1931 guessed | |
| 2. weight per horse power of the internal combustion engine imposed upon automobile engineers conditions that led them, quite rightly,to the development of what we now accept as the orthodox car, so will these new conditions result in a complete re-orientation of design. I believe, that those manufacturing organisations that are early in the field in this new orientation of design will reap the same commensurate benefits that the earlier manufacturers achieved when they standardised the present type of car and made it the orthodox type. There are, no doubt, several ways in which motor car design can be modified to conform to these new conditions, but just as a standard type of car has evolved from the insistent pressure of a given set of conditions, so, I believe, the new conditions will evolve a new overall design which will, in time, be found to be superior in general arrangement to any other and will become the orthodox car of the future. I propose, therefore, with some temerity to outline in detail the requirements that must be fulfilled in this car of the immediate future, and in so doing I shall try to make it clear that there are two problems to meet. [Handwritten note in left margin: namely (1) of less resistance of the car to its passage through the air + (2)] Firstly, a drastic reduction of the resistance of the car to its passage through the air, and secondly a revolutionary change in chassis design to secure adequate safety and comfort for the passengers at the high cruising speeds anticipated. I do not think that it is necessary for me to spend any time on proving the fact that by so shaping the outside form of the body it is possible to very nearly halve the air resistance co-efficient of the present day car. I will take, in the first place, the result of streamlining an orthodox car, leaving the chassis arrangement unaltered, and I cannot do better than give the results obtained by Jaray. He found that such a car reduced its | ||