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).
Letter discussing the performance testing of an S.S. Jaguar car and a subsequent failure.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 126\5\ scan0109 | |
| Date | 20th April 1939 | |
| 1070 Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}8/R.{Sir Henry Royce} 20th April, 1939. Messrs. Sanderson & Holmes, Ltd., London Road, DERBY. (For the attention of Mr. Morley.) Dear Sirs, We thank you for the letter from Mr. Lyons, which we return herewith, and note his remarks. We can assure you that we should not have even suggested that Messrs. S.S. Cars should contribute to the cost of the S.S. Jaguar had it received unfair treatment in our hands. In point of fact, we particularly did not want to smash up this car, and we subjected it to a no more severe test than was necessary to determine its performance relative to that of our own product. As soon as these tests were completed, the car was handed over to our Technical Cost engineer, and used by him for normal transportation about the country. It was while carrying out this work that the failure occurred. The car was run in exceedingly carefully. We believe that any hard driver who took his car to Budapest for his holiday would be likely to subject it to a more severe test than any which was imposed upon it while it was in our hands. If, under the circumstances the S.S. Co. still considers that the service given by this particular car was reasonable, then we have nothing more to say since the car was out of its guarantee at the time. | ||