BBC meeting notes (23 Nov. 1965): visit to Rolls-Royce and hydrostatic transmissions

Handwritten report of a technical meeting in November 1965 mentioning a visit to Rolls-Royce, a hydraulic bus and the progress of hydrostatic transmission programmes, including a Wankel engine prototype.

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Understanding this document

In this document

The document is the handwritten report of a BBC (Bureau d'Études, it seems) meeting, dated at the top "Tuesday 23.11.65" — the day digit bears a handwritten correction ("23" crossed out/corrected) — with the mention "BBC. 65" written in red p. 60. The named participants are "M.M. Be[uncertain] Bruedex" and "Cadron Louis" p. 60.

Visit to Rolls-Royce

The note mentions a visit organised by a "M. Massey Croffe (of Aviation Paris)", where the team is received by "M. Har[uncertain] GRYLLS, chief engineer". A "Lamandrée Switch question" is mentioned without further detail p. 60.

Hydraulic bus

There is mention of an "AOWAERTER-LANGEN hydraulic bus" (uncertain reading of the name), with tests announced p. 60.

Hydrostatic transmission

The text details the progress of several programmes:

Programme	Status / progress	Deadline	Page
Prototype A12 (30 HP)	running at La Ferté, 280,000 km	in progress	p. 60
Experimental cars (30 HP)	2 in circulation	in progress	p. 60
Wankel engine car	1 in assembly	in progress	p. 60
Star engine (100-120 HP)	advantages noted, especially rolling	end of Jan 66	p. 60
35 cm³ generator (100-120 HP)	tests planned	end of Dec 65	p. 60
Receiver (bench)	tests planned	Sept. 66 (?)	p. 60
Car tests (100-120 HP)	tests planned	Dec. 66 (?)	p. 60

The report also signals research into "Perman → Kerman → Bèze switching", the completion and testing of which would take about 6 months, as well as a material difficulty in accelerating road development p. 60. The note ends with the sentence "Patents are raining down", followed by a mention of research in progress in the "USA" and in "GB" p. 60.

Context

At that time, Citroën was working, beyond the hydropneumatic suspension of the DS, on wider applications of hydraulics, including hydrostatic transmissions — a field where Rolls-Royce, via its aeronautical branch, possessed recognised expertise. These inter-industrial technical exchanges, common in the 1960s, allowed for the comparison of advances in cutting-edge technologies shared between automotive and aeronautics.

The Wankel engine, mentioned here as a test platform, was then a subject of general interest in the automotive industry, with several manufacturers (including Citroën, via NSU) exploring this rotary architecture during this decade.

Archivist's perspective

This report, brief but dense, testifies to the scale of the research conducted in parallel by Paul Magès' teams around 1965: beyond the suspension, a vast programme of hydrostatic transmissions seems to have been underway, with several prototypes and precise deadlines set until the end of 1966 p. 60.

The mention of a visit to Rolls-Royce suggests international technical exchanges on these subjects, probably to compare industrial solutions. The final sentence "Patents are raining down" suggests a period particularly fertile in patent filings, consistent with the intense innovation activity associated with Magès documented in other pieces of the same file, such as the BBC conferences of 28 November and 13 December 1960 or the BBC meeting summary of 22 February 1962, which fall under the same type of periodic monitoring of team work.

Several readings remain uncertain (proper names, technical acronyms), which invites caution regarding the precise identification of the people and systems cited.