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 aerodynamic design and streamlining of car bodies for Le Mans and T.T. races, mentioning E.R. Hall's car and wind tunnel testing.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 90a\6\ Scan016 | |
| Date | 13th July 1936 | |
| -2- For Le Mans, E.R. Hall had a body which followed our recommendations with regard to the tail but not respecting the front end. It was alleged to give a good wind tunnel figure but there did not seem to be any sound theoretical reason why this should be so. In practice the gain in top speed was very slight. The body was badly made and quite unnecessarily heavy. Hall would not try out our scheme of the closed-in front end as we suggested, because he said it would be impossible to drive the car in a road race. Now, however, that it has been shown to be practicable on a tortuous road circuit such as that over which the French Grand Prix was run, we think this argument ceases to carry much weight. In any case we do not agree with the suggestion being condemned without trial. The point at issue is that unless streamlined bodies are going to be condemned in the T.T. race and Le Mans, we have got to do something to reduce the windage of the Bentley in racing trim, or accept the fact that we are handicapping ourselves unnecessarily. We hardly think the authorities will be so unprogressive as to prohibit streamlining. We did hope that Hall would have taken over the body side as his contribution towards the success of the project, but perhaps this is expecting too much of somebody who is neither technical nor an engineer. It now appears that if it is to be done at all we shall have to do it ourselves. It will mean spending as much money on wind tunnel work and models as we did on the streamlined Saloon Bentley, and then making a full-scale mock up. If it is decided to do this, Hall has agreed to hand over his T.T. car to us after Ulster for the experiment. As a further indication of the reduction in drag obtained by cleaning up the front end of the car, it is interesting to note that the Adler-Trumpf Saloon illustrated in Ha/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}16/K.W.6.4.36 has just covered 2,000 miles at an average speed of 100.39 M.P.H. equipped with an engine considerably less than half the size of the present standard Bentley. Automotive Industries June 27th, 1936, page 891. Ha/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} | ||