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).
Description of a vehicle indicator system using two rotating barrels with signs to be displayed at the front and back of a vehicle.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 15\6\ Scan118 | |
| Date | 17th March 1930 guessed | |
| D E S C R I P T I O N. The indicator consists of two barrels in suitable cases or housings, one placed at the front of the car & one at the back; these barrels are rotated by an endless flexible wire rope from a position on or near the steering column, & the wires may be taken through suitable tubing or over pulleys. Each barrel has marked on it suitable signs or words such as:- STOPPING SLOWING <-----> <-- FORWARD PASS ME or other suitable signs indications. Any one of the indications would be shown simultaneously at the back & the front of the vehicle. The barrels would be arranged to rotate through about 250 degrees, but the lever operating the flexible rope need only move through about say- 100 degrees or so. The periphery of the barrels would be made of some semi-transparent material & the indication signs or words of an opaque material (Or vice versa) so that a lamp or lamps inside the barrels - but not moving with them - would serve to illuminate them at night. The indications or signs shown above can, of course, be modified as required both in number & form, & their order can also be altered. For private cars the word FORWARD might be placed at the mid-position which is shown blank above; in the case of trade vehicles an advertisement or name might be shown in this space, while in the case of a bus the destination could be shown. Notches would be provided so that the driver would know when any given sign was correctly central in the glazed windows through which they would be seen. The operating lever could be interconnected with the illuminating switch so that at night the sign would not be illuminated until the lever had been pressed down into the appropriate notch, by this means the intermediate indications would not be illuminated each time the lever was moved. The scheme is intended primarily for closed-in vehicles such as buses, vans & saloon cars, but it can be applied to any vehicle. | ||