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).
Letter providing feedback on a test car, comparing it to a 1938 Bentley and listing likes and dislikes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 89\4\ scan0376 | |
| Date | 5th December 1938 | |
| PWP/DF 5th December 38. Messrs. Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd., 16 Conduit Street, W.1. Dear Mr. Bleaney, Rolls Royce Ltd., have never had a greater admirer or a better friend, than am I: I eat, drink and sleep R.R. products. Therefore I hope that you will forgive me if I criticise the car you were kind enough to lend me for the week-end. Of course it is a magnificent one - I never knew a R.R. that was not - and infinitely better, in every way, than anything made by anyone else, which I have driven: BUT it does suffer by comparison, in my view, with the 4¼ litre Bentley of 1938: here are my criticisms and suggestions which I present to you with appropriate diffidence and humility. But I would just add one thing, and that is that I was the first man in this Country to produce radiator shutters commercially and fit them to your cars (date 1921), so that my comments on that subject anyway are not those of an Amateur: and although in those far-off days you did write me that our shutters were "unnecessary and unsightly" you still retain their outward semblance. I do like Overdrive (if plus old gear box). Battery main switch. Body, particularly small ventilating windows and windscreen control. Quieter engine and much better clutch. Quicker warming up. I don't like New steering (perhaps tyres?). Big tyres - feeling of safety gone. Third gear much too high. Sham shutters. Would prefer old gearbox plus the overdrive: if impossible, then old gearbox for me every time. | ||