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).
Comparing an 8-cylinder Daimler with the forthcoming Wraith model, focusing on handling, chassis, and transmission.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 126\4\ scan0086 | |
| Date | 23th June 1934 | |
| [Handwritten annotations at top] Wraith roll, long & short, min wheelbase, flex engine mntg Rdeat E now Ch Engr [Typed text] To Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} and Wcr. from E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} Ux. re 8 Cylinder Daimler and Wraith. I was exceedingly interested to read report Cx.{Major Len W. Cox - Advertising Manager}4/KW.18.6.34 giving Cx{Major Len W. Cox - Advertising Manager}'s impressions of driving the 25-HP.8 cylinder Daimler. One of the most important criticisms that emerges is the impression created that the car is big and heavy and rolls badly when cornering at higher speeds. This is definitely the effect that we want to avoid on the Wraith, and although we propose to allow ample body accommodation, the scheme to have a short and a long chassis should prevent the whole of the output being made large for the sake of a certain number of customers who want to fit roomy bodies. We hope by the use of a pocketed dashboard and by economical arrangement of the front end of the chassis, to keep the Wraith wheelbase down to a minimum. One gathers from this report that Messrs. Daimler have not achieved the standard of silence and smoothness that we should expect from a fully flexible engine mounting. With regard to the transmission, we must agree that the combination of the fluid flywheel and wilson gearbox is very attractive from the point of view of ease of handling, but we feel that we have got to look into the future, which we are doing, to envisage a scheme of transmission which goes beyond the Wilson gearbox and in this respect we are following up certain designs of development. With regard to the paragraph under general remarks, we are thoroughly in agreement with cutting out hand controls and making the operation completely automatic and we are pushing on with this at the moment. With regard to the two points mentioned in Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}14/E.19.6.34, namely, a warning light to indicate when the head lamps are dipped, and a more easily operated petrol reserve control, we propose to incorporate these into RR. practice as soon as possible. Actually on the SpectreCodename for Phantom III the petrol tap has been | ||