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).
Reprinted road test report from 'The Motor' magazine for the 14.7 HP Cottin-Desgouttes Saloon.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 21\4\ Scan009 | |
| Date | 29th May 1928 | |
| Reprinted from The Motor May 29, 1928. X4332 Road Test Showing Principal Characteristics. First test report on a French Car with an Original and Excellent Suspension System. THE 14.7 H.P. COTTIN-DESGOUTTES SALOON. IN the important matter of suspension systems the French automobile engineers can justly claim to have done a great deal more work than their British confrères, and every year the Paris Salon sees new ideas which have been put into practice by pioneering concerns. Many of these are based on the excellent principle of springing each wheel independently, so doing away with axles and reducing unsprung weight to a minimum. A leading exponent of this principle is M.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore} Cottin, and it was therefore with particular interest that we recently undertook a road test of the 14.7 h.p. six-cylinder Cottin-Desgouttes saloon. This car, incidentally, will shortly be available on the British market at a price which has recently been fixed at £625. Upon taking the car over for test, we proceeded by way of the Kingston by-pass to the Portsmouth Road, and soon had ample opportunity for noting the behaviour of the suspension system at speed. A curious feature of the car is that although the springing is so light and supple as to give very easy riding—one can take hold of the head lamps and swing the front end of the car up and down through a range of about 6 ins. without difficulty—it evinces not the slightest tendency to bouncing or rolling when a rippled main road is taken fast. This result must be partly due to the cutting down of unsprung weight, as the only damping arrangement provided consists of a pair of Houdaille hydraulic shock absorbers at the back. Fast cornering is another outstanding feature. Tests on Rough Roads. So far, so good, we thought, but there are many suspension systems with these characteristics which are far from satisfactory on a really rough surface. Consequently, we headed the car for the Surrey lanes and by-ways, choosing the worst roads for pot-holes and undulations which we could recall. The result was really little short of astonishing, because, despite the fact that the four-seater body was carrying two people only, the car literally floated along without bouncing or vibration when driven really hard over a true “colonial” section. Almost as important as this easy riding quality is the fact that the wheels hold the road remarkably well; they roll smoothly along, following the undulations instead of leaping from ridge to ridge. As a result, it is very difficult to make the car show any signs of skidding on a slippery surface. Further to test this point, we drove at about 20 m.p.h. on second gear up a steep gradient with one of those ridged and stony surfaces liable to cause severe rear-wheel bouncing and spin, especially as the back of the car was unladen. On the Cottin, however, this climb was made with remarkable smoothness, and, so far as one could ascertain, without wheelspin. Finally, it is worth mentioning that we found it possible to lap Brooklands track at nearly 60 m.p.h. without bouncing or discomfort. The way in which the suspension is arranged has been described in The Motor on previous occasions and is made tolerably clear by the illustrations. Each of the front steering heads is shackled at the bottom to a transverse semi-elliptic spring, while the The unorthodox rear suspension and final drive. | ||