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).
Critique of American automotive styling trends, arguing that engineering progress is being sacrificed for aesthetics.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 170\3\ img197 | |
| Date | 25th July 1939 guessed | |
| ⑤ the long 'sweeping' fenders, which have no sweep at all and actually look like split kidneys. The facts are that the American public has no choice in the matter (since all makers have followed the same practice like sheep) and that short wheelbases save money and complication in propeller shafts. Radiator grilles, designed to look like lighthouses, weighing much more than the useful radiator, and changing in appearance every year till their own engineering departments cannot recognise them. When the face of a car changes so rapidly the "customer-loyalty" which is typical of Rolls Royce and Packard owners becomes a thing of the past. Initially the sheer cost in money, time, and energy of the fabulous styling changes and the resultant body dies, is getting to be more than any industry can stand. I feel that more and more real progress is being sacrificed to "advanced styling". The real mechanism of the car, as it is being tucked out of sight, is made to cost less & less in relation to its garish tin clothing. A certain conservatism in mechanical advances is beginning to settle like an impalpable cloud over the American industry. It seems to be a | ||