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).
Newspaper article from The Times reviewing the new 32-135 HP Hispano-Suiza car.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 22\1\ Scan002 | |
| Date | 2nd October 1920 | |
| (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT) THE TIMES Saturday, Oct. 2, 1920. A 32-135 H.P. CAR. THE NEW HISPANO-SUIZA. (BY OUR MOTORING CORRESPONDENT.) What does the ordinary experienced motorist expect from an otherwise ordinary motor-car which develops 135 h.p. ? Extreme speed? Fabulous flexibility? Hill-climbing of the kind one reads of in catalogues but seldom enjoys? It would be of great assistance to the writer to have the answer. During a period of several years' testing of every variety of motor car for The Times articles, he has usually been able to "place" each car in a definite class, which should make its own appeal to a definite section of the motoring public, and, in so many words, to say to such a section, "This car should do so and so. It should go as fast as this, should climb in such a fashion, should create such an impression on the mind of its owner" ; and go on to say in what respects it fails or succeeds. With a 10, 20, or 40 h.p. machine one knows where one is. The critic is working on familiar lines, and he has certain accepted and well-known standards by which to set up those comparisons which, in his opinion, put these cars in their rightful categories. But what is he to do with a 135 h.p.? The new six-cylinder Hispano-Suiza is rated, by the absurd R.A.C. formula, at between 37 and 38 h.p. In France, where it is made (despite its mixed Swiss and Spanish ancestry), it is called a 32 h.p. Both calculations are about as much to the point as zero or 1,000. I do not know whether it behaves like a 135 h.p. car, but I am quite certain no 32 h.p. machine ever made can equal its performances. One hundred and thirty-five horse-power calls up a vague vision of Brooklands, of terrific speed, of shattering noise, of drilled chassis, gear levers, axles, and steering wheel, of "hair's-breadth 'scapes" —of general breathlessness. It is a large, an imposing figure, a cipher never connected with the decent travels of law-abiding citizens on their humdrum affairs. One thinks exclusively of Grands Prix, of lightning handicaps, of those tremendous feats which are accomplished on the American seashore, whose palpitating particulars are hurled... | ||