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).
Report from a New York car show with observations on General Motors' and Chrysler's new models, focusing on front suspension design.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 173\1\ img068 | |
| Date | 10th January 1934 | |
| SG{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} WOR{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} E By Da{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} HDY{William Hardy} BN{W.O. Bentley / Mr Barrington} / Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} / Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} 4/KW. 26133 New York, Jan. 10, 1934 Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} We berthed at 8:30 a.m. yesterday, Tuesday, having been held up 24 hours in Boston by fog. We cleared the car all right and there seems to be no difficulty about licenses. Yesterday we spent at the show and various sub-shows. As a general impression, General Motors and Chryslers are the only two firms who have made a sustained effort to put over something new. General Motors have staged a wonderful show at the Waldorf Hotel. As you already know, they have independent front springing on every model. They have numerous working models, full size, to sell low rating front springs to the public, and believe so far that they are getting away with it. They have also taken the greatest pains with the appearance of their cars this year. Every detail such as lamps, door handles, wings, louvres, etc. have been carefully thought out. The reduction in the gap between the wing and the bonnet has been progressively worked on. Generally speaking the result is attractive; the effect is certainly to make every other car but the Chrysler look old-fashioned, which is presumably what they want. I ran into Oy. in the evening; he is leaving New York to-day. He is, of course, largely responsible for G.M.'s riding comfort campaign. He has been doing nothing else for two years, and has received a tremendous amount of assistance from the various other G.M. branches. Very briefly, some of the things he said were as follows: (1) The Chevrolet scheme is O.K. on the small car but less good on a big car. (2) Oy. gave two reasons why the Chevrolet scheme is not so good as the lever scheme on the Cadillac: a - The mass of the casting containing the spring, being at a relatively large radius with regard to the chassis centre line, tends to lower the torsional frame frequency which is very undesirable. b - The same mass rotating with the wheel promotes a low speed wobble. The latter statement I cannot understand since the low speed wobble, as we know it, derives all its energy from the tyre contact and has such a low frequency that one would not expect it to be affected by a small quantity of inertia. Neither is very convincing. (3) They find the best compromise for the Cadillac to be: King pin angle - 3.5° Wheel angle - 1.5° and would prefer less Out of centre point 2.5° | ||