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).
Constructing a steel Phantom III body, covering weight saving, experimental builds, and chassis mounting techniques.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 117\1\ scan0060 | |
| Date | 15th November 1935 | |
| - sheet 2 - included an allowance for the saving on servicing which he anticipates would be made. This means that metal coachwork will no longer be considered solely on a quantitive basis. Another most important feature is that it represents a means of improving the performance of any of our cars owing to the saving in weight which we can reasonably anticipate from the Bentley result. Both Mr Roberts and Mr Ward are very keen I believe to construct a Phantom 3 body in steel, and in view of the time required for the preparation of the design, the patterns, and for doing the necessary development work I would like to recommend that we order such a body from them for experimental purposes, and this body could be looked upon as replacing the SpectreCodename for Phantom III I limousine which we wish to scrap sooner or later. The most interesting type of body to start off with would be a full size enclosed limousine in which the constructional difficulties and operational problems are at a maximum, and which usually represents the bulk of our sales for this particular size of chassis. If it is agreed that the construction of this body be undertaken I should like to consider having the dashboard and scuttle built up from steel into one structure solid with the general framework of the body and the front floorboards would also be carried on the bodywork. Unless we do this I fear we shall lose some of the virtues of the construction.. We anticipate that with the Phantom 3 chassis frame we should be able to fasten the frame and bodywork rigidly together. Some of this must be contingent of course on the investigations at present going on in connection with tyre noise, but we have to recognise that examples of steel bodywork that we have of other makes are rigidly fastened to the chassis frame. The first portion of the running of the Bentley in France was done with the bodywork rigidly mounted, and it was during this period that the scuttle pillars cracked in the unnecessarily weak places which had been put in in imitation of the quirks used on the normal body. When the scuttle pillars were repaired AND STRENGTHENED and altered the mounting of the body to Silent bloc fixings and the car subsequently ran its mileace in France with the body thus flexibly mounted. | ||