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).
Confidential memo comparing material and wages costs with Rover to set a cost target for a £900 Bentley car.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 111\2\ scan0275 | |
| Date | 4th December 1937 | |
| PRIVATE Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} c. By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} 1044 also TS Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}6/AP.4.12.37 BENTLEY 308 Everyone is anxious to get a target to aim at in order to make the £900 car a profitable possibility. With a view to enabling someone to clarify the objective, therefore, we have obtained from Rovers the material and wages.cost of their chassis. Obviously these figures are confidential and are not directly comparable with our own because Rovers buy out much more than we do, and also do not make their own castings or electrical equipment. To the best of our ability, however, we have reduced their figures to our basis. It would probably be well if Ll. Smith checked over the way in which the result has been arrived at (Gry.{Shadwell Grylls} can supply the necessary information.) The attached sheet indicates that out of every £100 that Rovers spend on making their car, £23 is wages and £77 material. The suggested target put up by Ll.Smith of £104 labour, £181 material, means that out of every £100 available we are proposing to spend £67 on material and £33 on wages. In other words, the proposed ratio is not so very different to that employed by Rovers; the target, however, so far can be considered generous on the labour side if the Rover figure means anything. The big discrepancy occurs, however, if we accept that Rover's prices of today are our target of tomorrow. We can hardly do otherwise when we consider that no six cylinder car in America (and more than 1 1/2 million have been made this year) was listed above £200. Compared with Rover's actual £.s.d. figures when adjusted to rationalise their bought out parts, the proposed target for Bentley 50 allows us to spend on our chassis 2.4 times as much as they do on material and 4.9 times as much on labour. Therefore, from our point of view, we are under no delusion that the £900 project represents more than the first step towards our ultimate objective which is economical, comfortable and reliable transportation. Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} | ||