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).
Design requirements for a luggage grid, rear apron, and petrol tank.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\U\2January1930-September1930\ Scan238 | |
| Date | 15th August 1930 guessed | |
| (2) ORIGINAL (3) - (contd.) The folded arm type of grid as shewn in the photographs of the American P.1. admittedly looks very neat, but it willbe seen that it does not fulfil Sales requirements. It is impossible to make it having a folding double barred guard rail 14" high, a grid 22" long, having 4 or 5 cross bars. We have discussed this matter with R.{Sir Henry Royce}, and he has suggested that we should make a grid asshewn in the sketch, and also a folding arm grid on the lines of the American, to be offered for sale to those customers who only sometimes wish to carry a trunk at the back of a maximum bodied P. 2. He is not at all pleased with the idea of making it easy for the customer to make an elegant job of the back of our car when no spare wheel is carried at the rear. (4) REAR APRON. It was not quite clear from our interview whether you wished us to design and standardise a rear apron, or whether we should let the coachbuilders makethis. We are strongly opposed to a rear apron on account of the noise and fumes being trapped and finally leaking into the body. The petrol tank was lifted up and made to come flush with the top flange of the frame so that it itself could be the apron. We havealready done a special petrol tank for type M.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore}, as used on the cars for Soviet Russia, which extends to the rear cross tube. We prefer however to use the standard tank and an apron on the grounds that we know two types of petrol tank would be very expensive. At the present we are actually working on the designs of the two types of luggage grid. DA{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}/EV.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} | ||