W. A. Robotham
After an official visit from Amanullah Khan, the King of Afghanistan, he was shown at the Derby works an open tourer with a body by Barker's which was sold to him.
[9] Another foreign buyer "which could not be refused" was for two limousines and a saloon; to be immune from a Mauser bullet fired at ten paces.
[10] In 1940 he was asked to concentrate on armoured fighting vehicles, and found the research facilities of the British motor-car industry "disappointingly meagre" apart from Vauxhall Motors (part of GM).
The team at Clan Foundry, Belper[e] included three of Spurrier's best designers, and also developed the Rolls-Royce B range engines.
He found that the Tank Board had no experienced mechanical engineers and that the War Office General Staff had no clear conception of their requirements.
In the Ministry of Supply the answer to problems was to "shoot the messenger" and outsiders he was dealing with had the attitude that he would be gone tomorrow, so he resigned, leaving in August 1943 and returning to Belper.
They had run many hundreds of thousands of miles in experimental cars, including the very fast but smooth Scalded Cat a Bentley with a 6-litre 8-cylinder engine and capable of over 100 mph, which Robotham liked for his commuting.
Major-General Charles Dunphie (later chairman of Vickers) agreed it would be an ideal engine for a post-war replacement for the Universal Carrier,[g] though this project was dropped.
Hives agreed with a "fully tooled" body but when Arthur Sidgreaves heard of the cost he insisted on a full-scale mock-up for the Board.
Some board members objected to sinking the headlamps into the wings, but changing the design might lose their place in the queue at Pressed Steel with perhaps twelve months delay.
After VE day in May 1945 the Crewe factory went from Merlins to motor cars, and a body production line was created "from nothing".
[15] In 1945 he was disappointed when Dr Lewellen Smith who had been at the Glasgow factory was made managing director of the newly formed Motor Car Division and a member of the main board.
[16] In 1949 he was appointed to the main board of Rolls-Royce Limited, to his surprise, and perhaps to convince Vickers they were giving top priority to supplying them with tractor diesel engines.
Then Hives became interested as Vickers-Armstrongs (the Vickers Viscount used Rolls-Royce engines) were proposing to enter the crawler tractor market in competition with Caterpillar; starting with the Vickers VR180 Vigor the largest machine in the range with a 190 bhp engine, and supercharged to give the optimum low speed "lugging" characteristics.
Unlike Rolls-Royce cars sold on the “magic of a name”, an engine would not pay more than a 10% premium above competitors like Cummins, Caterpillar, Deutz, G.M., International Harvester or Allis Chalmers; and price largely depends on volume.
Jack Olding was the largest Caterpillar dealer in England, which they had relinquished to be the sales and service organisation for the new tractor throughout the world.
Other potential customers were Scammel, Petbow (generating sets), and Vospers and Trinity House (marine engines), but most of their production went to Vickers.
Rail was losing ground to road, and they were engineering railcar applications which required much design work for a small volume of orders.
[21] Then Hives asked Robotham whether he wanted to move to the Motor Car Division at Crewe or develop diesel engines for Vickers.
He found the Sentinel staff were demoralised with frequent changes in policy and management since 1946, so put money into items like a new welfare hall on the sports ground and purchasing a stretch of salmon fishing river on the Severn a mile from the factory which had been rented by the works fishing club for several years; to improve the espirit de corps (he and directors played in the cricket team for interdepartmental matches!).
[27] He bought a farm of 300 acres in Engeham, Kent for a retirement career in June 1945, with advice from his brother-in-law Jack Thompson.
