Maybe he should have argued that in 1930 Harry Ricardo designed an experimental V12 sleeve-valve diesel engine for Rolls-Royce. And that in a car driven by George Eyston it held the diesel land speed record until 1950.
Or that RR made lots of diesel engines after 1950 or so.
IMO, Rolls-Royce died in the 1973 de-merger of the Rolls-Royce automotive business from the nationalised Rolls-Royce Limited and was buried when Vickers acquired it in 1980.
That being said, I’d love to get my hands on a Silver Cloud III Mulliner Park Ward fixed head coupé.
Recent Land Rover Discoveries look like they could have been intentionally designed to knock pedestrians to the floor, then funnel them under the vehicle:
Pedestrian safety regulations are why Jaguars have a badge on the front now (in the EU at least), rather than the statue of an actual Jaguar.
That said, when you buy your Jaaaaaaaaag, you can also purchase an ornamental jaguar statuette to put on your mantelpiece, which it just so happens would screw straight into the bonnet of your Jag, if you chose to do so.
As someone for whom Harry Ricardo was close to a deity in my formative years, I would remark that sleeve valves were developed as a way of reducing NVH and service intervals for engines, so at the time made sense. The problem is that it is very difficult to make a sleeve valve Diesel because the ports are in the walls, which limits the compression ratio. The other problem with SV engines is the trail of most un-RR like smoke. They would possibly have done better to do a 2-stroke Diesel with blown scavenge, like a marine engine, but Harry R did love his sleeve valves.
But, let’s face it, once they were using cheap truck engines, albeit with good balancing, RR Motors as a car company was pretty much window dressing, like one of those iPhones with the back covered in Swarovski crystals that they sell to Chinese businessmen in Harrods.
You are right; for fashion reasons these vehicles have to have cut away fronts (for when you are climbing 45 degree hills, whereas few of these cars will ever climb anything bigger than a kerb.)
Governments are very unwilling to enforce safety rules for these vehicles because the people who own them have money and vote.
My small private act of rebellion is never, ever to give way to them.
