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 discussing car body weights, exceeding limits, and coachwork inspection.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 18\1\ Scan052 | |
| Date | 2nd March 1931 | |
| SG.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} FROM DA{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}/EV.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} N840 CONFIDENTIAL DA{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}/EV{Ivan Evernden - coachwork}2.3.31. C. to - C. WOR.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} re. CAR WEIGHTS. A.7840. C. to - HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} X.4538. From EP{G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer}8/T14131., it appears that the continental touring cars have exceeded the weight limit, and one fears they may grow in heaviness as all other classes of bodies have done. A table herewith shews how a simple saloon body with fixed front seat - 18-EX. - can be made to weigh 7 cwt. with bucket seats, a sunshine roof, and built in boot, etc, we see a similar body weighing 10 cwt. - 26 and 27-EX. Although the two production bodies - Kruse and Harris - only slightly heavier than 26 and 27-EX. yet they are heavier than 26-EX. which we believe should be a maximum. We believe our limit of 46.5 cwts. to be a practical one and we believe it should be rigorously enforced or else body weights on this chassis will creep up from this small excess to a pitch comparable with those of the big bodyies on the standard chassis. Nothing can be done when the car is finished, and a meeting of the CSC. and the usual letter of censure has no effect on those that follow after. We believe that the only hope lies in adequate inspection of the work in the process of construction by our inspector, who should insist on customer's bodies being constructed on the lines and principles employed in the experimental body of its type - in this case 18, 26, and 27-EX. This should be the more easily done in the case of the continental touring cars than ordinary cars, owing to the smallness of the numbers. Our coachwork inspection does not appear to produce the desired effect at the present time. Now, of all times, is our opportunity to get our foot in and dictate on matters of construction, for no one of our coachbuilders could afford to turn us away or even risk losing our goodwill towards them. In the case of the 25HP. - the big Pullman limousines - the total car weight has reached 36.5 cwts. in the case of the Barker Trials car, making a total laden weight of 47 cwt. (6 people and 1.5 cwt. of luggage) as against our guarantee weight of 39 cwts., making the latter read rather absurd. Attached we give the weights of several experimental cars with similar bodies. It is my experience that the leading coachbuilders have gone back from the lighter and more scientific construction which resulted from our intensive tuition at the introduction of P. 2. This particular remark applies especially to Barkers. DA{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}/EV.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} | ||