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).
The second page of a letter from Geoffrey Summers detailing feedback on a car's performance during a Continental run.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 47\2\ Scan004 | |
| Date | 19th July 1927 guessed | |
| -2- make it more comfortable for long Continental runs. Some of the roads in France are very bad, and while the chassis and springing are quite capable of maintaining a speed of 30 to 40 miles an hour over them the steering kicks make such a speed too tiring. Perhaps you could do something which would improve on this still further, without sacrificing the self-centring tendency which is certainly very useful on Alpine passes. 3. Magneto Switch. I think it is really essential that one should be able to switch off the dynamo, and at the same time to be able to run on either or both ignitions. When I arrived at Cortina, after about five days on the road, it took nearly two pints of distilled water to set up the cells to normal level, although I took particular care to leave home with them filled. I should like you to take the battery out of the car, and put in fresh acid, and also test to see if any damage has been done to the plates. 4. Petrol Tank Filler. The trouble here is that there is not sufficient air vent to cope with the air displacement caused by the very rapid flow of some of the Continental filling pumps. Many of them have no tap control on their filler pipe, and in one case I had to use a tin jug to fill up my tank, as the flow was so rapid that your filler pipe would not take it at all, even when the tank was empty. I had trouble at every tank station where I filled up. I found it difficult to explain in three different languages exactly why their pumps would not fill my tank! In conclusion, I am sorry that I am always writing in complaint about my car, but as a set-off against the above I should like to say that myself and my three passengers found the springing of the car as near perfection as we think it possible to achieve. After the first two days we had no further trouble with the engine, and it behaved splendidly with a minimum of attention. As far as I can tell, nothing is shaken loose, and nothing has gone wrong with the chassis, in spite of some very severe treatment on some very bad roads. I shall hope to see you on Tuesday or Wednesday next, and have a talk with you about the various points raised. Yours faithfully, (Sgd) Geoffrey Summers. | ||