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).
Preprint paper on safety trends in body design through chassisless construction, presented at a Society of Automotive Engineers meeting.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 117\1\ scan0083 | |
| Date | 31th May 1936 | |
| X1021 17 PREPRINT.--Paper to be presented at the Summer Meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers at White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., May 31 to June 5, 1936. All papers and discussions presented at meetings of the Society are the exclusive property of the Society, from which permission to publish this discussion, in full or in part, after its presentation and with credit to the author, and the Society, can be obtained upon request. The Society is not responsible for statements or opinions advanced in papers or discussions at its meetings. SAFETY TRENDS IN BODY DESIGN THROUGH CHASSISLESS CONSTRUCTION By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} F.{Mr Friese} R.{Sir Henry Royce} FAGEOL, President Twin Coach Company Nine years ago last January, my brother and myself demonstrated, on the West Coast, a forty passenger motor coach which, according to orthodox automotive practice, was frameless - that is, the vehicle was not tied to and built around a main frame member with separate body as it had been customary to do in previous good automotive practice. We have been pioneering in motor coach construction since just after the War and after substantially eight years' experience with the conventional type of chassis and body vehicle, we, through this experience, and by thinking in terms of an analysis of the problem involved, rather than along lines of precedent, found the chassisless type vehicle had so many obvious advantages that it seemed foolhardy to continue along the old lines, and we developed what was then a freak, but which is now standard construction for all motor coach builders. We believe we have learned that metals and weight are not nearly so important to automotive design progress as is their distribution. We all remember the old days around Detroit in the early 1900's, when picturesque gasoline cowboys, known as testers, raced through the back countryside with the chassis of a customer's new automobile, testing it out before a body, built by a separate organization at a different factory, was shipped over to be mounted upon that chassis. Theoretically, this body came into being because Mr. American Automotive Buyer, as soon as he tired of the thrill of gasoline locomotion, looked for some protective comfort from the wind and elements. It is not necessary for me to more than remind you of the old days and comment that we shall all have to agree that automobiles in those early days seemed to have been built in layers like the pyramids, and with little attention to weight | ||