Cars - Rolls-Royce

Home > Listing Index > Cars > Rolls-Royce

	Cars - Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce is a set of companies derived from the British car and aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Henry Royce and C.S. Rolls in 1906. The companies are:

Rolls-Royce plc, by far the most significant in economic terms, a British engineering firm specializing in turbine-based products, particularly aircraft engines, which has recently added marine propulsion and energy systems to its portfolio, providing a wide range of civil and military engineering products and services.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited, a new manufacturer of luxury automobiles, owned by BMW, which started deliveries of its single model, the Phantom, in January 2003 (see below).
Bentley Motors Limited
, the continuation of the original Rolls-Royce automobile division. Since 1998 the company has been owned by the Volkswagen Group. Rolls-Royce and Bentley
cars shared much mechanically since the 1931 takeover of Bentley by Rolls-Royce, often differing in little other than the radiator grille. Confusingly, from 2003 the company is no longer allowed to produce cars called Rolls-Royce, the trademarks being licensed to BMW rather than to Volkswagen.

Nicknames for Rolls-Royce cars are "Rolls", "Roller" and "Double R", although in Derby, where the headquarters of Rolls-Royce plc is located, the firm is commonly known as "Royce's". The former Rolls-Royce motor car factory in Crewe, Cheshire, which now builds only Bentley cars, is also often known by locals as "Royce's". The term "The Rolls-Royce of x" is often used informally to describe anything that is the best of its type. The company is aggressive at protecting its trademarks whenever commercial use of the term is mentioned. (One noted example was a coachbuilder marketing the Custom Cloud, which used a Chevrolet Monte Carlo with Rolls-Royce cues. The company was forced to shut down production after a heated lawsuit.) The company did allow the creation of a futuristic pink Rolls-Royce for Thunderbirds in 1965.

Column-mounted automatic transmission shifters are still used today on all Rolls-Royces.

History

In 1884 Frederick Henry Royce started an electrical and mechanical business. He made his first car, a "Royce", in his Manchester factory in 1904. He was introduced to Charles Stewart Rolls at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on May 4 of that year, and the pair agreed a to deal where Royce would manufacture cars, to be sold exclusively by Rolls. A clause was added to the contract stipulating the cars would be called "Rolls-Royce". The company was formed on March 15, 1906, and moved to Derby in 1908.

The Silver Ghost (1906-1925) was the model responsible for the company's early great reputation. It had a 6-cylinder engine. 6173 were built. In 1921, the company opened a second factory in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the United States to help meet demand there. A further 1701 "Springfield Ghosts" were built there. This factory operated for 10 years, closing in 1931. Its chassis was used as a basis for the first British armoured car deployed in both world wars.

In 1931 the company acquired rival car maker Bentley, whose finances were unable to weather the Great Depression. From then until 2002, Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars were often identical apart from the radiator grille and minor details.

Rolls-Royce and Bentley car production moved to Crewe in 1946, and also Mulliner Park Ward, London, in 1959 as the company started to build bodies for its cars for the first time—previously it had built only chassis, leaving the bodies to specialist coachbuilders. For the rest of the automotive history, see sections below.

Financial problems caused largely by development of the new RB211 turbofan engine led—after several cash subsidies—to the company being nationalized by the Heath government in 1971. (Delay in production of this engine has been blamed for the failure of the technically advanced Lockheed TriStar — it was beaten to launch by its competitor, the Douglas DC-10.) In 1973 the automobile business was spun off as a separate entity, Rolls-Royce Motors. The main business of aircraft and marine engines remained in public ownership until 1987, when it was privatised as Rolls-Royce plc, one of many privatisations of the Thatcher government.

In 1980 Rolls-Royce Motor Cars was acquired by Vickers. In 1998 Vickers sold the company on to Volkswagen. A year later Rolls-Royce plc acquired Vickers plc for £576m.

The VW and BMW deal

In 1998 Vickers decided to sell the Rolls-Royce car business. Although Volkswagen Group also made offers for the company, the leading contender seemed to be BMW, who already supplied engines and other components for Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars. However their final offer of £340m was outbid by VW, who offered £430m.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Rolls-Royce ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Rolls-Royce; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Cars - Rolls-Royce

History

The VW and BMW deal

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay