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).
Detailed report of the 15EX car accident.
| Identifier | Morton\M10\ img032 | |
| Date | 27th March 1928 | |
| 15EX ACCIDENT. We were on route from Paris to Boulogne having left Paris about 2.30 and were travelling easily with cutout open, the roads being wet and with slight intermittent rain. The only point to remark about the car was that both back tyres had become rather worn, the pattern just showing in the centre but being, of course, more prominent on the sides of the tread. Just before the accident, time was just about 4-30, light good but dull and it was not actually raining and we were some 12 or 14 miles from Amiens. We had just rounded a broad sweep to the right at a steady speed of about 50 and were travelling on the crown of the road now quite straight for a long way ahead but not accelerating. Cutout being open one could be sure of this. We were just burbling along very comfortably and nothing was in sight. The road was macadam, tarred, wet but clean with a somewhat high camber but not excessive for France and car felt altogether firm on it. Some 30 or 40 yds. on after we were on the straight she started slowly to crab down the left hand side of the road and this developed into a definite skid which I corrected and went into a rather slighter one in the opposite sense (At this time I was not disturbed at all and thought definitely, hello! here's Gryll's skid all over again) then back into a very slight one in the general sense and I had a feeling that the matter was ended. Gryll's tells me he felt so too when extremely suddenly she developed a really violent skid again in the original sense and off the road we went. I had nearly got her straight once more when we hit a tree, the first one of a row of comparatively small ones plated about half-way between a row of big ones and the edge of the road. We hit it just before the near-side back wheel and were moving at the time in a direction about 15° from the longitudinal axis of the car. The tree went in between N.S. rear wheel and frame and pulled the back axle clean off at the spherical joint. As soon as the rear endsof the springs fell off the rollers on back axle, the back end dropped and tank and spare wheel were torn off also. The tank and spare wheel were enclosed in the back of the body and the result was to tear this off also short at a point just behind the front seats. The front part carried on intact dragging on the grass margin and finally came to rest with front part partially across the road about 20 yds. further on from the tree. CWB. | ||