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).
Internal discussion on market competition and product strategy for developing new, cheaper 18 HP and Bentley models.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 3\4\ 04-page013 | |
| Date | 16th March 1931 guessed | |
| -2- and consequently the proportion we capture might be too small to justify the low price we must sell at. As the horse-power goes up the numbers go down, i.e. the market is smaller whatever the price:- 651. 25 h.p. Bentley, Daimler, Fiat, Hudson and Marmon. 433. 26 h.p. R-R.{Sir Henry Royce}, Graham, Mareyon, Studebaker. 4664. 24 h.p. This is a popular horse-power, but all in cheap cars, viz. Austin, Humber, Ford, Vauxhall, Chrysler, Graham, Hotchkiss, Mercedes, Nash and Sunbeam - the latter the only expensive one. Therefore, it would seem we must keep before us all the time what we are aiming for, which is about an 18 h.p. chassis to take a small light 4-seater Saloon or Open body; very fast, more particularly in acceleration, fairly high top speed and meshed third for easy and constant changes; smooth, without R-R smoothness; sporting type of steering that does not want holding on to a good road, and trouble free; partly made in our Works and partly bought out; cheap multiple-production bodies and accessories; to list, at say £750 without supercharger; extra at option for supercharger. It will be known by certain knowledgeable motorists that it is made in the R-R Works, but we should not give more publicity to this than we can help, as we want nothing to reflect on the R-R name. On the suggestion of putting J-1 engine into B-II chassis. We do not want to make a competitor in our 20/25 h.p. market, which we have. B-II may be a competitor with Peregrine, but better that than the 20/25 h.p. Again, we appear to lose sight of the original idea of B-II, viz. to find a cheaper, and therefore wider market than R-R as such can find. J-III was originally designed not to give us the extra nominal 3 h.p. but for cheaper production, because it was recognised that our present 20/25 h.p. was too costly to make and did not give us sufficient margin of profit, in spite of the high sale price. The suggestion now is, therefore, that we should take this admittedly expensive-to-make engine, and sell it as a Bentley, which we are trying to get into the under £1,000 complete car class. | ||