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 memorandum discussing the modifications and performance of Mr. Fairey's old car, 34-GN.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 18\5\ Scan025 | |
| Date | 21th January 1935 | |
| X 7770 To Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} from Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} c. to WOr.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} c. to Lp.{Mr Lappin} Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}2/KW.21.1.35. Re Mr. Fairey. With reference to Mr. Fairey's old car, 34-GN, to which you refer in Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}9/E.18.1.35. This particular car was fitted with a 5 1/2 to 1 compression ratio head, high lift rockers, and the original Phantom II camshaft and carburetter. This combination gives an excellent low speed performance and pick-up, but at top speed is slightly inferior to the present Continental Phantom with the same cylinder head. No more cars were produced with high lift rockers because it was considered by the Design Dept. that this was an undesirable way of increasing the performance, and the new camshaft was evolved which has been fitted to Phantom cars since then. The only other job we did to Fairey's car was to fit ribbed brake drums, which of course are now standardised. Presumably it would be easy to borrow Mr. Fairey's car and confirm our view that it is better on acceleration and one or two m.p.h. worse at top speeds than the present standard Continental Phantom. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} | ||