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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).
The use of Swiss alloy for car bodies, challenges with Bentley chassis, and cooperation between coachbuilders.

Identifier  ExFiles\Box 30\5\  Scan159
Date  18th November 1935 guessed
  
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We have built a new extension to our Works for this type of body and will procure the necessary plant such as spot welding machines, etc., immediately we get some encouragement to go ahead.

I expect Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} knows that Mr. Elliot and Mr. Ward have been exploring the possibilities of a Swiss alloy to replace steel, presumably on the weight question. We have no experience of this alloy and cannot possibly foretell what the result would be in a body. It is rather expensive to buy - roughly about £50 more in material alone than the ordinary body material, apart from additional labour and overheads involved in bringing it through as a finished product. I believe the main difficulty is that it cannot be welded, heat treatment destroying its efficiency. Therefore, we would have to evolve some other satisfactory method to replace the welding. However, we would be very pleased to construct a body of the Swiss metal on a Bentley chassis, again at cost price, and would guarantee not to charge more than say £600 of the cost to Rolls-Royce.

The Bentley chassis has certainly brought to light the almost insuperable difficulty of mounting it with a perfectly satisfactory closed body, and we cannot close our eyes to the fact that all those already on the road are already more or less anachronisms. We are improving matters now by mounting the newer bodies on silent bloc bushes, but we must plump for steel as the real solution, and the sooner the better.

I believe that Rolls-Royce have given an order to Van den Plas to build a Bentley Saloon on the silent bloc system throughout. This is obviously a counterpoise to our steel effort so that other coachbuilders may not be left high and dry! We think ourselves that such a body would only be half a cure and that if Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} is true to himself he will agree with our views.

Another thing that is very obvious to me is the great benefit resulting from the closer co-operation now taking place between Derby and ourselves. If this policy is pursued the advantage accruing are going to be of the greatest possible value to everyone concerned. In the past too much attention has possibly been paid to the aesthetic side and too little to the development of the construction for the reason that we, as coachbuilders, have been more or less coerced into the adoption of certain dogmatic principles now being thrown overboard when brought to the notice of the technical people. This is all to the good, and our united efforts should shortly result in owners of special bodywork deriving that degree
  
  


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