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).
Advantages and disadvantages of participating in motor racing.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 90a\2\ Scan193 | |
| Date | 1st October 1934 | |
| To Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} from Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} Sg{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD}14/E9.10.34 - 2 - appears essential that we race to improve the breed because this can be done without racing, although we agree that racing is a certain help in this direction. There is no British [XXXX] car in this class which is at present a serious competitor to the Bentley. The general feeling is that we should have much more to lose than to gain by racing. Although the Bentley put up such a remarkable perform-ance in the Tourist Trophy, nevertheless the uninitiated did not appreciate its true value. The advertisements published indicated: 1. Magnette. 2. Bentley. Then again in the Shelsley Walsh trials, its time was beaten by quite small cars. We appreciate the reasons for this but from a general publicity point of view one could not call it good. There have been some very good comments about the results obtained by prospective clients and I understand that two definite orders can be traced to the Ulster Tourist Trophy, but at the same time we have had enquiries of a sort which we do not want, i.e. for duplicate cars to the one Hall drove. It would be no exaggeration to say that we have received quite as favourable comments from a sales promotion point of view by ourhaving increased the body dimensions one inch all round. If we started racing, one of the difficulties would be to know when to stop. To withdraw gracefully on a big success would hardly fit in with our traditions and, if we failed, we should then have to suffer the bad publicity for perhaps a year or more and make extensive efforts to correct it. One also feels very definitely from past experience that we should soon find important design alterations recommended which we should be forced to have done, whereas the future chassis programme for the Works seems to be one | ||