Correspondence dated 11 May 1955

Summary

An item from the surviving correspondence of William John Sands.

Historical context

This item forms part of the surviving William John Sands correspondence and is dated 11 May 1955. It is preserved in the William John Sands Family Archive as evidence of Sands’s professional work and relationships. The accompanying transcript was produced by machine OCR and should be checked against the original scan before being treated as a definitive reading.

Catalogue description

Original correspondence scan imported from the Sands and Ferguson family archive. Source file: 19550511.jpg.

Machine transcript — unreviewed

Myrtlefield', Hillsborough Old Road, Lisburn, Co. Antrim llth May, 1955. Harry Ferguson, Esq., Messrs. Harry Ferguson Research Ltd., Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire. Dear Mr. Ferguson, I hope you will excuse me once more for not replying to your interesting letter of April 22nd, but I have been exploring some of the problems of the ‘inertia type transmission so as to give you some more dope on it. TES? COMPARTSONS The tests of the different cars are very interesting, and I am not surprised that your job came out on top ‘Wilt your experience of tractive effort, weight transfer, initial and constant wheel loading, the ordinary car has not got the traction matched to the EP. VOLKSWAGEN Here is a job that beats me why it is selling so well all over Burope,it is not the or the styling (which reminds one of the beetle back Buggattis) which'is out of date when compared with so called modern styling, so what is it? - tyre life, - No! It mst be performance. With the weight so far away from the centre of the car, you would think it would be like a large flywheel with vertical axis having the weight all concentrated at the rim, mking it hard to get moving, but when it gets moving!!! The Insurance Companies (if they would) could give you figures which would prove the safety of this jéb better than anyone. TRANSMISSION fhe Fluid drives fitted to American cars have the advantage of large engines, which could almost do without a gear box for ordinary driving if they had a simple fluid flywheel, with our small economical power plants it is a more difficult jop Ifa Sarg Fe meantoad job could be devised, it would suit our small LP