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).
Article from 'Motor Sport' magazine detailing the early history of the company's cars and aero-engines, including racing successes and model development.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 160\5\ scan0259 | |
| Date | 1st January 1941 | |
| JANUARY, 1941 261 MOTOR SPORT ON SOMETHING IN THE ENGLISH TRADITION—continued one of the 1905 two-cylinder Rolls-Royce cars, which a Scottish owner presented to the makers after he had extracted over 190,000 miles of service from it; the condition is still about 100 per cent. Rolls, however, realised that publicity was as essential to a good car as to a bad, if commercial success was to reward mechanical genius, and he commenced enthusiastically to publicize his new interest. In 1904 he met H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught at Folkestone and took him for a coastal tour in a two-cylinder Rolls-Royce, keeping his appointment at 9 a.m. by leaving London before dawn and returning that evening—a day’s run of 220 miles. Rolls was behind the presentation of a Rolls-Royce to the retiring headmaster of Eton, and it was Rolls who drove Lord Methuen in a Rolls-Royce at the army manœuvres that year. Then Mr. Briggs, of Yorkshire, a highly satisfied owner of the “Heavy Twenty” Rolls-Royce which was a new model at the Olympia Show of February, 1905, suggested the entry of two Rolls-Royces for the T.T. Needless to say, the entry went in—the first to be received—and on the day of the race the official car was a 30 h.p. Rolls-Royce. Rolls had visited the I.O.M. course in May and the two 20 h.p. cars were thus ready in ample time for the race in September. History relates how Rolls experienced gearbox trouble a few miles from the start, but that Percy Northey finished second to Napier’s Arrol-Johnston, at 33.7 m.p.h.—the fastest non-stop run. Up to this time C. S. Rolls and Co. had handled the Panhard, Minerva, New Orleans and Dufaux agencies, as well as that of Rolls-Royce, but the 1905 T.T. results decided them on a new policy, whereby they sold only the last-named car, for which purpose Rolls-Royce, Ltd., was formed, with a capital of £60,000. We owe that great business undertaking to Rolls, Johnson, Edmunds and Briggs. At a luncheon at the Trocadero to celebrate Northey’s T.T. success the new 20 h.p. V8 Rolls-Royce, with engine at the side, was dramatically announced, which could do almost all its running on top gear. This developed into the famous “Legalimit” model, shown at the November, 1905, Olympia, with normally-located engine governed to run uphill, downhill and along the level at the legal 20 m.p.h. With open three-seater body the price was £1,160, and Sir Alfred Harmsworth was the first to order. Rolls’s next move was to drive a T.T. type “Light Twenty” Rolls-Royce from Monte Carlo to London in 37 hrs. 28½ mins. total time, in answer to Jarrott’s run from London to Monte in a 40 h.p. Crossley. On the run across France the Rolls-Royce averaged 27.3 m.p.h. to the Crossley’s 24.2 m.p.h. Many other demonstrations of Rolls-Royce reliability and efficiency were given and in the 1906 T.T., after Northey had retired with a broken spring in the first lap, Rolls won easily at 39.3 m.p.h., 27 mins. ahead of Bablot’s Berliet. By the end of 1906 the company’s capital was increased to £200,000. The present Derby works were now put in hand, but that notwithstanding, Royce found time to design a 48 h.p. chassis to supplement the “ Twenty ” and “ Thirty.” Thus was the immortal “ Silver Ghost” born, three being exhibited at the end of 1906, when the chassis price was £950. Further to firmly established the “ Silver Ghost,” amongst them the historic 15,000 miles run in 1907 under R.A.C. observation, when the engine was only stopped at the conclusion of the day’s drive, and a distance of 14,371 miles was covered thus, a slack petrol tap causing the only involuntary engine stop. When the car was stripped at the conclusion of the test, the R.A.C. could not find any faults which could not have been put right at a cost of £2 2s. 7d., while, tyre repairs included, the running expenses came out at 4½d.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} a mile. This original “ Silver Ghost” was still in use when Nockolds wrote his book, and it then had some 400,000 miles to its credit. Yet for the 1907 Show Royce had further improved the “ 40/50” in respect of steering, suspension, transmission, brakes, carburation and silencing. Claude Johnson entered two cars of the “ Silver Ghost” type—“ White Knave” and “ Silver Rogue”—for the 1908 R.A.C. International Touring Car Trial, at the same time challenging any other similar size car to a further run of 15,000 miles non-stop (17,000 in all) at stakes of £1,000 a side, together with a scoring system by points with stakes of 1/- a point, the winner to take all—I wonder how our modern cars would have fared in such a test ? In the trial the Rolls-Royce won its class, and averaged 53.6 m.p.h. for 200 observed miles on Brooklands; no one accepted the Johnson Challenge! Later, under R.A.C. observation, the Rolls-Royces really tried on the track over this distance, and returned 65.9 and 65.84 m.p.h., respectively. Please note the use made of racing, trials and track-testing by Rolls-Royce, in consolidating its early reputation, ye doubters. . . . In 1908 the “ one-model” policy was decided upon, and the “ 40/50” became the sole concern of the Derby factory until the advent of the 20 h.p. model in 1923. The unhappy death of Rolls while flying his aeroplane at a meeting in 1910, and the serious illness of Royce, which necessitated his removal to the South of France, did not stem Rolls-Royce activities. The “ 40/50” was further improved and continued to be kept before the public in various ways. Just before Christmas, 1911, for instance, a special-bodied, hotted-up chassis was taken to Weybridge and timed over the flying quarter-mile at 101 m.p.h.—and that seems to me an astonishing speed for a s.v. Rolls before the war. Prior to this, a “ London-Edinburgh ” “ 40/50 ” had shown up Edge’s Napier by repeating this run from which it derived its name in top gear, but on a 2.7 to 1 ratio, on which 76.42 m.p.h. was achieved at Brooklands. The “ Continental” model was evolved for the 1913 Alpine Trial. Although a crash prevented the Rolls-Royce team from taking the Team Prize, they entirely dominated the event and, incidentally, each covered the 1,645 miles, nineteen Alpine passes included, without replenishment of the radiators. Some time afterwards Radley, a private owner, set the London-Monte Carlo record at 26 hrs. 4 mins. total time—so if any young bloods of the present are hard put to it to celebrate the next Armistice . . . The war found Frederick Royce working as hard in his drawing office at St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} Margaret’s Bay as ever he did in Manchester and Derby, and the result was the long range of Rolls-Royce aero-engines which did so much to give our Royal Flying Corps the mastery of the air in 1914-18. In spite of ill-health isolating him so far from the parent factory (he later moved, but only to West WitteringHenry Royce's home town), Royce got the same results and maintained the self-same perfection in connection with aero-motors as he had with his cars. His first venture in this new field was the Rolls-Royce “ Eagle,” which at first produced 255 b.h.p. at 1,800 r.p.m., although laid down as a 200 h.p. motor, and which, by 1918, was giving 360 b.h.p. The “ Hawk ” and “ Falcon” were other great R.{Sir Henry Royce}-R.{Sir Henry Royce} motors of the last world-war, and after the Armistice the good work was continued, by way of the “ Buzzard” and “ Kestrel,” down to the variety of “ Merlin” types to which we of the present generation are already deeply indebted, as doubtless we are soon to be to other R.{Sir Henry Royce}-R.{Sir Henry Royce} motors at present “ unmentionable.” It was in the course of development of these motors that the famous Schneider Trophy engines were evolved, the “ H” of 1929 giving 1,900 b.h.p. at 2,900 r.p.m. for 1,630 lbs., and the “ R” of 1931 producing 2,350 b.h.p. at 3,200 r.p.m. for a weight of 1,530 lbs. It is the proud claim of these wonderful power units that in their time they have been used by British record-attackers successfully to break the world’s speed records on land, on water, and in the air. I particularly like the story that the assistance of the Mayor of Derby had to be obtained to pacify the towns-folk when the 1929 Schneider Trophy engines were on the test-bed—living, as I now do, near the R.A.E. I realise how far and how penetratingly sound carries from the stub-exhausts of really hairy motors. Reverting to that last war, Nockolds tells many episodes of the great part played by Rolls-Royce cars, both armoured and otherwise, and he puts on record the classic tribute of Lawrence of Arabia who, when asked if there was anything to be bought with money that he couldn’t afford but would like to have, answered: “ I should like to have a Rolls-Royce car, with enough tyres and petrol to last me all my life.” Incidentally, the King’s Messengers Service, which was operated between the French ports and British H.Q. from September, 1914, until the close of 1916 by Rolls-Royce owners, is the sort of thing which enthusiasts now in the R.A.S.C. must wish existed in this war. Perhaps, however, some of the luckier ones have been able to emulate the historic run put up by the driver who left Fere-en-Tardenois at 5 a.m. in the | ||