Condensed from "Daimler 1896 - 1946" (St John C Nixon)

Charles Y. Wright was a young American agriculturist, who in 1901, became interested in Motor Cars.  He considered the chief weakness of the petrol engine to be the noise it made.  In those days, engine designers paid more attention to their engines doing things rather than the manner in which they did them.  Provided the cam struck the bottom of the valve tappet and opened it was good enough, if it made a noise doing so, so be it, as long as it worked.  Knight was not impressed with this theory.  He could not see how a cam striking a valve tappet at any speed could ever be made to be a silent operation.