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).
Visit to the Pressed Steel Body Co. to investigate three different types of all-steel body construction.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\V\October1930-February1931\ Scan010 | |
| Date | 4th October 1930 | |
| S.G. FROM DA{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}/EV.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} C. to MOR. LTD. C. to MR. HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} C. to MR. FOR. ENG. ORIGINAL DA{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}/EV{Ivan Evernden - coachwork}1/W4.10.30. x4685 ALL-STEEL BODIES. Away back in the summer we visited the Works of the Pressed Steel Body Co. (Gt. Britain) Ltd. at Cowley, to see bodies built by the Budd process and to investigate the possibility of buying small quantities of such bodies for the 25HP. with special refer-ence to the 4 door, 6 light, 6 seater, Pullman limousine. There are 3 types of construction going on in the steel body, mass production world: (1) The Budd all-steel body - built in thousands. In this case the front wings and valances are made in one pressing and one operation. The windscreen and scuttle forms another complete pressing, the whole side of the body including the front and centre pillars, and rear quarter and wheel arch forms another pressing. The rear panel is in 1 piece and so are the 2 box cant rails. The roof consists of a leather insert. The whole of these sections are placed in a jig fastened together by electric spot welding and the seams made watertight and masked by filling with solder. There is no framework of either wood or steel. After a little touching up locally the panels are ready for painting without any rubbing down of any sort, and after a coat of anti-rust and cellulose priming the final coats of cellulose are applied and oven dried. The polishing is done by hand. There is a small quantity of wood fastened into the roof and quarters for the attachment of the trimming. All this is screwed into the sheet metal by drive screws. The shell of such body for the Morris-Isis complete for trimming can be carried round easily by one person. Among the bodies made under this process are the Morris-Isis, and Wolseley-Viper, both of which bodies are made from the same dies with slight modifications. The dies are cast iron with steel faces screwed on in pieces; it is therefore fairly easy to change the mouldings and so produce 2 or 3 different bodies from the same die core. This system of course would not do for bodies for the 25HP. RR. (2) Here we have a similar type of construction but the body is made of pressings in much smaller pieces. The die and die frames are therefore much less expensive and the possibility of alteration of design much greater. Into this class fall the all-steel bodies of the Hillman and Humber-Snipe. The finished job is not fundamentally different from that of class 1. except that there are more seams and the process is more costly. It is this class of body that we anticipate we might develop for the 25HP. We could have a Pullman limousine, landaulet, and sedanca, all made from the same dies with slight modifications. (3) The 3rd. class of body is really the body as built by our coachbuilders, that is to say, a wooden frame with metal pressings, but the metal pressings are pressed 22 gauge steel instead of hand beaten aluminium. These are known as composite bodies and form the bulk of the (1) | ||