Correspondence dated 29 April 1957

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 29 April 1957. 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: 19570429.jpg.

Machine transcript — unreviewed

AUSTIN DISTRIBUTORS \ CUSTOMERS’ V DRIVEN BY OUR CUSTOMERS’ O AND RESPON! TELEGRAMS “BUSINESS” BELFAST TELEPHONE BELFAST i (LINES) IMT/EG April 29, 1957. Dear Billy, I had a letter from Mr. Ferguson this morning, from which the following is an extract:- "Thank you for yours of 19th April which I have mentioned to our people in Coventry. We are all aware of what the Armstrong Siddeley people have been doing. We have seen a number of similar patents taken ‘out by them over the past year or so, and we know from our earlier talks that they are working on this type of turbine as a long term project. "The design has certain attractions, but we cannot see anything of this sort becoming a practical proposition for big production cars for many, many years to come; and we also consider that it would be almost impossible to apply it to a four-wheel- drive vehicle. "Do give my best wishes to Willie when you see him again." I think that, perhaps, Mr. Ferguson does not realise how fast this turbine idea is catching on. I believe that great strides are being made in America, both by General Motors and Ford, Indeed, I think I read somewhere that Ford's hope to put a free piston engine with gas turbine in a tractor next year for commercial sale, I saw Archie Greer the other day; he was asking after you, He had Bronchitis during the Winter, but