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 to Specialloid Ltd. declining the use of their pistons for Bentley Motors service purposes due to a lack of extensive testing.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 148\4\ scan0326 | |
| Date | 30th September 1937 | |
| Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}/Mths.{Reg Matthews}13/MH.{M. Huckerby} 30th. September 1937. Messrs. Specialloid Ltd., Friern Park, North Finchley, London. N.12. For the attention of Mr. H.R.Peters. Dear Sirs, With reference to your letter of the 24th. inst. we find it impossible to agree to the suggestion of allowing Bentley Motors, London, to fit your pistons for service purposes, for in doing so we might quite conceivably run into untold trouble. We fully realise that you would take every possible care in manufacturing the pistons but at the same time we have a certain definite procedure for the standardisation of any part, and to deviate from that procedure is more than we can do. You realise, as well as we do, that before standardising so important a feature as a piston, extensive tests must be carried out, such as the determination of bedding, oil consumption, endurance life, freedom from knock and seizures under extreme climatic conditions, the weight of piston is also of major importance to us; to do all this requires a considerable amount of running on test beds and road, and even then it would require a road test of several thousand miles of hard driving before we could satisfy ourselves that the pistons were up to our standard in every way. Therefore, until such time that we can test your pistons here, to our satisfaction, we cannot agree to the use of your pistons, you can, however, rest assured that should the opportunity occur for us to spend the necessary time to test | ||