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).
Coachwork development, including light alloy construction, a new Bentley frame, and the Silent Travel system.
Identifier | ExFiles\Box 117\1\ scan0039 | |
Date | 23th October 1935 | |
X1021 Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} and Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} from E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} E.3/HP.23.10.35. re Coachwork Development. Referring to Mr Ward's visit to Switzerland, I am attaching herewith a copy of his letter dated the 16th inst. from which you will see he has in mind building a body in light alloys. I strongly recommend that we support him in this project which he is most competent to carry out, as already demonstrated on the steel body. I should like to see such a body made for either the new Bentley cruciform frame or for a Phantom 3. So far as can be seen up to the present the light alloy construction is likely to be more applicable to small quantity coachwork production than steel by virtue of using lengths of extruded sections of standardised form bent to the requisite shape instead of steel pressings for its framework. With regard to the steel body which is running in France, it will be very interesting to see how this behaves now that the admittedly weak point caused by the unnecessary reproduction of the quirking has been suitably stiffened. On the question of the Silent Travel bodies I have yet to see Fox of Vanden Plas with EV{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} as suggested, to obtain information on their system as compared with Van Vooren, but it does appear that coachbuilders over here interpret the Silent Travel system in their own way and none use the original patent in its entire form. Van Vooren are of course the original builders and the reason we bought one of these bodies and not a Vanden Plas lies in the fact that it was desired to have an exact replica of the Paris trials car, which was said to be so good. We want to know if this is so, but from a short run from the Works to the Midland hotel I was very disappointed with the amount of front end movement compared with Slater's trials car. | ||