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).
Project update letter regarding independent wheel springing, various car and engine tests, and a potential deal with General Motors.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 173\1\ img049 | |
| Date | 19th January 1934 | |
| W.A. Robotham, Esq., Hotel Commodore, New York, U.S.A. Dear Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}, I trust you enjoyed your voyage. I have just received your letters posted outside New York. As regards independent wheel springing, I have told Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} that we are looking forward to you obtaining the data for us to be able to start work on this job. As we have started so late on this job compared with other people and as we expect to get the result quickly, we have got to try and make use of the information which they have obtained. We should be very interested to hear your conclusions on the results which have been obtained with independent springing. You might look into the question of whether, apart from bringing a car back, we might purchase a front axle unit complete which we could apply to one of our existing cars. Things are going on quite peacefully at Derby. We have got through two Type Tests on the Goshawk without lead. We still have to carry out the Lead tests. I have got Lovesey to send you our report on the work on valves in conjunction with Lead. We expect to have the Vulture car on the road tomorrow. It looks very nice and we are hoping to get quite a lot of enjoyment out of it. The blue Bentley car with the light Duralumin rods and light flywheel gives a definite improvement on low gears. The gearbox with synchro-mesh second is fitted to the Vulture. I cabled you as regards whether the General Motors offer of exchange of cars still holds. My own opinion is that I should think it is still very probable that we should be glad to accept their proposal, although at the moment this is not official. | ||