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).
Continued report on a vehicle's performance, focusing on suspension, steering, and handling characteristics.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 128\1\ scan0071 | |
| Date | 11th November 1929 guessed | |
| Contd :- -2- being surprisingly well made and designed. It weighs about 20 cwts., the wheel supporting levers necessarily being a considerable item as we were told by the makers that they weighed 20 lbs. each. The two features of interest in the performance of the car were (a) The suspension. (b) The steering. The initial deflection on all springs was given as 2 1/4" only. The maximum permissable deflection as 8 1/4". The car body was an occasional 4-seater with one spare wheel at the back. In spite of the relatively strong springs the car rode well on a normal main road with a rippling surface by 'buses. This is the type of surface that gives us so much trouble. It was not quite so good as the Cottin Desgouttes under conditions, but very much better than the average car. Considering that the weight distribution on this car is far from what we know to be ideal, the absence of pitching was rather remarkable. At high speeds on the worst possible roads the car behave very well indeed. Corners could be taken at high speeds without rolling, this was one point where the cotting failed. Considering the limited amount of experimental work that the manufactures can have been able to put in, the car is rather a vindication of the coil spring. The car we tried had done considerable milage but body rattles of any sort did not seem to exist. We admit that when we tried the Garson which had a similar type of springing, the result was not good, but the whole Garson system was most primitively made so that it probably had very considerable internal friction while it had no hydraulic damping. | ||