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).
Engineering analysis of a vehicle's suspension, braking, aesthetics, and chassis construction.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 126\4\ scan0091 | |
| Date | 26th September 1935 guessed | |
| (3) the leaf springs being fitted with shackles at each end. The parallelogram links have silent block bearings. This provision for carrying braking torque enables springs of the lowest rating to be used consistent with obtaining good steerability, but personally I cannot see that it gives them any more than our own scheme which we have used for some time as the flexibility of our springing at the front up till now has not been limited by brake torque but only by steerability. The brake gear on this car is somewhat disappointing. It is Girling throughout, assisted by Dewandre vacuum servo with a recuperation chamber. The brake drums however look entirely inadequate. There are no separate shoes for the hand brake which is operated by a pull up lever of somewhat limited travel and with this scheme the hand brake operation may need frequent adjustment. The frontal appearance of the car is something that we do not like and avoided on the SpectreCodename for Phantom III. There is a big upsweep of the mudguards on each side of the radiator causing the wings to look very broad and heavy, and forming a depression or shelf in front of the radiator face with very deep vertical sides. A point I was most interested in about the whole chassis was what Daimlers had done to improve their frame construction. The result in my opinion is disappointing as in the end they have had to fit a stabiliser bumper of the Breedon Wilmot type on the front ends of the chassis frame such as we fit to certain of our Bentleys. I have no doubt that the chassis frame is light. It is not unduly deep and the gauge is thin, but the trouble they have gone to with the cruciform member has clearly not eliminated front end movement due to the cruciform member being so far back and in a position where it does no work torsionally after the bodywork is fitted. I gave a lot of thought to this point when laying down the SpectreCodename for Phantom III frame, and I am still of the opinion that the best position for the cruciform member is where we have it on SpectreCodename for Phantom III, and that the difficulties we have encountered in connection with a separate gearbox will be satisfactorily overcome. I believe the Daimler frame should be fairly rigid laterally which is a feature which has been shown up recently to be of importance, but here again the long panel | ||