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).
SPONTAN automatic one-pedal gearless control system.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 41\4\ Scan032 | |
| Date | 21th September 1931 | |
| 83676. PN.{Mr Northey}13/WT21.9.31. S/W. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}..from PN.{Mr Northey} Copy to Esq. [Strikethrough] I am sending to you a well got-up book describing the SPONTAN automatic one-pedal gearless control for motor cars. You may have heard of this, or at some time inspected it. Undoubtedly the description and general ingenuity of hook-up and design are very intriguing. There is much I believe which follows on the Constantinesco method of transmission. As is usual in such cases, the car to which this mechanism was fitted, and which I tested last week, was of a very cheap description, and had many incidental noises tending to confuse selectivity of observation. At all times when acceleration was taking place, there was a noise like a miniature stone-breaking machine, such as might have been used in connection with Queen Mary's Dolls House. When the equivalent however, of top gear was reached, then all was reasonably quiet. I fear that this mushy noise is more or less inevitable to such gear, although the representative of the SPONTAN urged me to believe that the noise was entirely due to the engine. I look upon the whole affair as a sort of disease which tends to get hold of engineers with ingenuity, much as does multi-epicyclic arrangements. A single-pedal control sounds O.K. but it does not appeal to me any more than that the application of the brakes should be the result of a negative action, as in this case by lifting one's foot off the pedal. PN.{Mr Northey} | ||