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).
Visit to a General Motors testing ground, comparing their methods with existing practices.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 182\M18\ img025 | |
| Date | 26th November 1930 guessed | |
| - 2 - When I was there I should estimate there were 40 to 50 different cars running round. All endurance running is run day and night. There is a permanent staff of over 200. The magnitude of the job astonished me. They have all kinds of appliances for carrying out tests. The ground is run by the General Motors Research but each factory of the G.M. such as Cadillac, Buick, etc., has its own shop and their own men and have nothing to do with each other, that is, a 'Cadillac' man will not go inside the 'Buick' shop. The Research make tests on all makes of cars. In testing the G.M. products, they obtain them through a dealer so as to get an average car. On a new model they always run on a basis of 25,000 as a test. I did not see there any apparatus that we have not improvised and used. For instance, our tests in France are better than anything they can devise as a road test. They have no bumper test, but 'Oy' says they are putting one in at once. For a springing and noise measurement they are working on instru- ments but they have to depend on personal observations. They have a dynamometer mounted on a truck which they tow behind a car for radiator and brake tests; we do the same thing but tow a standard car. It is the grand manner in which everything is done which is so striking. In spite of this we were told that if the cost is spread over all Contd. | ||