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).
Responding to criticisms about the change of instrument suppliers for the Phantom III and the quality of the new parts.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 165\3\ img163 | |
| Date | 17th February 1937 | |
| 6033 W/S. To C. from Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}/Wst. c. to Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} RE. PHANTOM III. INSTRUMENTS. Replying to your C.15/C.15.2.37., with regard to our instruments generally, the reason we changed over to Messrs Smiths was that we felt we should get better service generally, due to the fact that they were instrument specialists and were thus in possession of a lot of general experience and technical information, which we should do well to take advantage of. We of course save money by this move and it is therefore correct to say that the instruments are cheaper, but we do not consider them to be inferior in performance and reliability, as our records of previous instruments we fitted were not creditable. Dealing with Mr.Harris' particular criticisms, he is wrong in saying that the ammeter we fit is not damped, as it has a special air damper fitted, which gives approximately the same amount of damping as that obtained with a moving coil instrument, and with a degree of accuracy required on a motor car which is equally as good as a moving coil instrument. From the point of view of robustness, this ammeter has it over the moving coil, as the latter is much more sensitive and gives more trouble due to sticking needles etc.. Mr.Harris is also wrong when he says that the speedometer fitted to the Bentley car is the same as the Triumph. The Triumph fit a Jaeger instrument which is considerably cheaper than our A.T. We must admit that we have had a lot of trouble with speedometer trips recently, which has been traced to the suppliers of this unit manufacturing the pieces in the wrong material, but we hope there will be no recurrence of this trouble. Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}/Wst. | ||