The 1956 Rolls Royce was the Silver Cloud. The silver cloud was identical to the Bentley S1 apart from the badges. It is said the engine was slightly more powerful on the Bentley as it was a drivers car rather than a chauffeurs car but there is a story about a journalist who was writing an article about one of the Rolls Royce models. He asked Rolls Royce how much power (as in Horse power) the engine was producing and was given the answer "Sufficient".

 

My version heard of the same story was "adequate"

 

They certainly were as tough as guts Bill. They held up extremely well in our harsh areas. Here we had a dealer around every corner although you could fix them with a bit of wire from a farmers fence much as you could a Toyota in later years.

The Chrysler TorqueFlite Transmission was the finest auto out of the US at the time. Certainly a damn side better than the GM Traumatic as it was known in SA that frequently dumped it's guts on the road.

 

Every successful company needs fine engineers where applicable & capital other than the corner grocery store. The corner grocery store the world over were high margin convenience stores. They got their goods on consignment and had every supplier fighting to pay for free sign-writing much like the Pepsi/Coke fight.

 

Yes, the Bentley equivalents often had two carbs and a higher compression ratio. I was told by an ex-R-R man that the Cloud was developed well after the start of the Shadow programme. R-R had so much uncertainty about a car without a chassis that the Shadow took a long time to reach production.

 

Here's more about compression ratios on the RR straight six.
Australian RR Forums: Compression Ratio

There was no higher compression ratio, RR took the 4.5 litre engine and over-bored it to 4.9 litre's, and that was it until the new aluminum V8 came out in the Cloud II's and III's.
The cloud I still had the old 4.9 litre 6 in it, with an 8:1 ratio.

Here's an excerpt from that thread:
"Jeff,
That link points to a late Cloud head. Nothing with CR that high made for the 4.5 L engine.

4.25 and 4.5 heads are similar but the stud pattern is different. The Cloud engine is very different from the earlier engines, and the cylinder head would not fit at all.

The combustion chambers of the 4.25 and 4.5 cylinder heads are very similar and difficult to see the difference. The Cloud combustion chamber is quite different. By that time the RR engineers understood why milling the head caused troubles (choking the exhaust flow) and they redesigned the combustion chamber to increase CR without changing the flow path cross-section at the critical location. The attached drawing shows the differences in the combustion chambers of the two engines."



A slight increase in power was achieved in camshaft design, this in turn caused the Bentley engine to run not as quiet using solid lifters.
The ramps were changed on the cam shafts for quieter running on the RR, but lost a bit of power, so I've read.
There were 6 different camshafts. (it was said that RR would change design's and still use the same part number)
Apparently the exhausts were so baffled around a 20 decrease in HP was lost to keep the cars quiet.

The Bentley R-Type Continental Fast Back did achieve a 120 MPH top speed with the 4.9 litre cloud engine with a very large single exhaust system.
The aluminum body was light with a spartan interior to save weight, if you can call it that by todays standards.

I had a chance to drive an R-Continental, I was doing 40mph in top gear and I floored it, and in a few seconds it was do 70.
It didn't throw me back in the seat, but it had gobs of torque, and it was noticeable.

We traded cars while I rebuilt his entire brake system.
He eventually sold, but would never tell me what he got for it.

 

This is going to be controversial and take us back to Jaguars but I much prefer the shape of the 1950s S1 / Silver cloud to the later 1970s Shadow. The Shadow was too boxy a bit like (and here is the controversial bit) the change from the Mk2 / S Type to the 420 and XJ6. They started designing cars with a straight edged ruler rather than with free hand curves and they ruined it all. It must have been easier and cheaper to produce square wings in metal than curved ones.

 

None of the Jags were coach built out of aluminum by hand, they were all stamped steel bodies, I don't see how it would have been less or more expensive to make a square boxy fender as apposed to a rounded one.

I believe that the Shadow's were just stamped too with some aluminum bits like the hood, I haven't checked on that, so I could be wrong.
I do know the Corniche was still all aluminum hand built and was built up on the Shadow's unit body frame.

I think RR and Jag just got boxier because tastes were changing.
The Shadow's Pininfarina slab body was not well received at first.

 

Early XK's e.g.120 were Aluminium coachbuilt! A friend owns one. Only when they took off did they move to steel. Lyons never expected the success. It was intended as a short run experimental filler.


Aluminium body with C type head. A bit of a hybrid for racing ~ just sold for a fortune ~ Known as "Yellow Bird"

 

R-R's post-war standard steel body panels were stamped by the Pressed Steel Company the same as Jaguar's. I don't know if Pressed Steel also assembled the panels into bodies.

I think the move to more boxy shapes was fashion. The front wing of the series XJ isn't an easy pressing. The eyebrows over the headlights are a complication that required hand finishing and lead loading. That's why they disappeared on the XJ40. The Shadow doesn't have eyebrows, but the front corners of the front wings look difficult and are probably made from a few pieces. Basically, the small radius, 3D panels are the most difficult or impossible to press. Consider that even the large radius Mk2 front wing was made in two pieces.

I'm the first to condemn Pressed Steel for their body assembly and the fact that they designed details to make assembly easy at the cost of structural stiffness. But, I'm told their presses were as good as any and their engineers pioneered a lot of software. They should have been able to do anything that was possible in sheet steel.

 

R-R post war bodies were hand assembled from Pressed Steel panels and hand painted by brush & polish. Brushes softened overnight in vinegar & little short strokes. Ian Wilson, our long retired Ops manager used to work there. A Scot.

 

I know from working on it that my mates Bentley S1 is steel wings front and rear but the doors, bonnet and boot lids are all aluminium.

 

Refresh page for edit.

 

I can confirm that the Rolls Royce that my friend has is a Silver Cloud. It has a weird history of being bought in the USA as RHD model.
It was later bought by an Australian and ended up in storage for 15+ years.
My friend latched onto it and we spent an inordinate amount of time "sorting" it out, but it is now roadworthy and registered.
The other RR he has is a 1925 Phantom tourer. That one had more faults and problems than you could believe.
Right at the moment he is 1500ks away at an RR happening being driven there and (hopefully) back

 

Glyn
I understand that about 200 alloy/wood XK120 bodies were produced in the initial batch.
These are as rare as rocking horse poo and command incredible prices.
Cheers

 

Paul Skilleter had an aluminum bodied XK120 for may years. He sold it, possibly to finance a Bentley Continental Fastback. Some bought them to race in the belief that they were lighter than the steel bodies. In fact, once combined with the wooden frame, that's not likely to be the case or at least not significant.

Up to the late 1930s, at least in Europe, I don't know about the US, it was normal for luxury cars to be RHD. I suppose it saved time for the driver to leap out and run to open the kerbside back door for her ladyship.

 

Absolutely correct Bill. They fetch prices that make your eyes water. To my knowledge we only have 2 in SA. I guess we are lucky to have those.

 

Don' know how many alloy body XK120s are left in Australia.
International collectors raided Australia in the last decade and a lot of the early cars were bought and shipped overseas.

 

We have suffered the same thing here Bill with all the low production exotics like Aston Martin etc. etc. I had an Aston DB6 short chassis Volante (one of 37 produced) bought from an insolvent estate & tatty to say the least for a while as a youngster that I could not afford to restore at that age. I finally sold it at what I thought, was a handsome profit then, to the owner of Cape Town Battery Company who did a great restoration in Maroon & biscuit ~ But it was ultimately off to Coys in London and sold for a fortune. Man I could kick myself now for not just keeping it in storage. As they say "hindsight is always the clearest vision".

 

73. Drs say, 4-8.remaing. Last ones maybe less mobile. Starting to use a cpl.pal's shops. Sometimes they let me help. And often, my old guy is valuable to have around when they get stuck. 😋