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).
Road trial report on a 6-Cylinder Bentley from the 1927 Motor Show.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\R\2October1927-November-1927\ 36 | |
| Date | 24th October 1927 | |
| To R.{Sir Henry Royce} from Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} c. to BJ. Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} c. to E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} DA.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} c. to BY.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} CWB. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}3/LG24.10.27. MOTOR SHOW - 1927. We have made the following road trials at the Show :- 6-CYL. BENTLEY. The car we tried weighed 2.25 tons, empty with a small fabric saloon body on it. It was impossible to sit three abreast in the rear seat with any degree of comfort. Five persons were carried during the run so that the total car weight was about 2.5 tons. The main features of the chassis appeared to be unaltered from the model we tried 18 months ago. With the exception of a Dewandre servo which has been added, coil ignition instead of one of the magnetos, and the dynamo on the front end of the crankshaft of larger capacity. We could pick out a very faint crankshaft period at full throttle on top gear at 40-45 m.p.h. This should mean that the main crankshaft period would occur at 75-80 m.p.h. on top due to the low axle ratio when as far as we could ascertain the engine would be doing about 3200 r.p.m. We hope to be able to obtain an extended trial to verify this point in the immediate future. The acceleration and top gear performance of the car were good but not so impressive as one would expect with the power weight ratio available. We carefully compared the performance with that of a standard open touring Phantom, with a 4.6 to 1 compression ratio and 15 X 52 axle, the result was slightly in favour of the Phantom, which for the test with two passengers weighed approx. the contd :- | ||