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).
Development, testing schedule, and release plan for a new Sports Car model.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 65a\1\ scan0171 | |
| Date | 11th November 1927 | |
| 17170 HS{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} To R.{Sir Henry Royce} from BJ. Copy to Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Sports Car. I was very glad during my visit to Derby yesterday to hear from Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} that he expected to take this car to WW next week, finished on the lines agreed by you at Olympia. It is hoped that you will approve of the car as it now stands, as this will enable us to send it out to France with the new body about 3 weeks later. One coachbuilder is working night and day on the body to have it ready for this test. The other two bodies are not so urgent. It will make a wonderful difference to our next year's programme having this car to sell during the Spring and throughout the year, and it should certainly make a difference of £50,000 to our profits during the year, which is so immensely important to us under the present circumstances. I was also glad to hear that the preparation for the standard chassis with its numerous modifications (which we refer to as the Second Sports Car) was developing well. This will be a great advantage to us if we can manage to get it finished by the middle of next year for a 10,000 miles test. We are all very anxious to have this and hope that the following Spring we shall be in a position to deliver it to the public, which will again help us financially over the following year, namely 1929. On the other hand, I suppose we must not be too hopeful as we know from experience that the development of a chassis containing a large number of alterations is apt to take considerably longer to get into production than is at first anticipated, so perhaps it may not be in the hands of the public until the middle of 1929. We shall all do our best, however, to push it forward in every way possible. BJ. | ||