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 discussing the comparative performance of a Bentley against a 3.3 Bugatti, focusing on engine compression ratios and hill climb times.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 3\6\ 06-page233 | |
| Date | 2nd October 1934 | |
| 4633 3 To Bt.{Capt. J. S. Burt - Engineer} from Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}8/KW.2.10.34. Dear Bt.{Capt. J. S. Burt - Engineer}, Thank you for your note Bt.{Capt. J. S. Burt - Engineer}8/1.10.34. We are certainly interested in the 3.3 Bugattis because these are competitors of ours in France. So far we have had no difficulty in selling the Bentley against the Bugatti. Obviously on performance the result is largely dictated by the compression ratio. We say that we can use a higher compression ratio than the 3.3 Bugatti for a given degree of detonation, but we will not fit this compression ratio to the standard car because we will not put up with the tendency to roughness. When we come to the track we will bring a car with a head which we expect will detonate less than the Bugatti but which will give us a better performance than the standard. It will be interesting to compare this with the Terraplane and Bugatti and also to compare it with a standard car. As an example of what results can be achieved by slightly raising the compression ratio of the standard Bentley, you will probably be interested to know that Hall's car climbed Shelsley in 48 secs., the record for the hill on that day obtained by out and out racing cars, boosted to last the course of 1000 yards and a little more, was 44 secs. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} | ||