Rolls Royce: A Car to Remember

The original company of Rolls Royce Limited was founded in Britain in 1906 by two men. Henry Royce and C.S. Rolls teamed up to form a mutually beneficial deal. Royce was already producing cars and he needed someone to distribute them. Thus the "Rolls Royce" was born.

Early On

The Rolls Royce was to be sold by Rolls exclusively and a contract was signed to that end. The 6-cylinder "Silver Ghost" was the first car to be manufactured under the Rolls Royce name and it proved to be quite popular, with more than 6,000 of them being built between 1906 and 1925.

In 1921, the Rolls Royce Company expanded to the United States where they built their first American factory in Massachusetts. There, they produced 1,701 "Springfield Ghosts" which were identical to the Silver Ghost, but marketed to the American audience.

The U.S. factory was only in operation for 10 years, but it produced the chassis that would later be used in British armored cars during both World Wars.

The Great Depression and Beyond

In 1933, during the Great Depression, many auto makers suffered, but not the Rolls Royce Company. Instead, they bought up their competition, Bentley, when that company was unable to withstand the hard times. From then until 2002, the two car brands were almost identical.

1959 saw the start of a new trend, with the Rolls Royce Bentley company beginning to build the entire car, body and all. Previously, they had left the body-building coach makers, but now they took matters into their own hands. The result was a series of elegant cars with names like Phantom, Silver Wraith, Silver Cloud, Silver Shadow and Silver Dawn.

The Phantom proved most successful and various editions were brought out over the years, evolving up to the Phantom VI, in 1968, although it remained on the market until 1992.

Changes

In 1973, Rolls Royce Limited split into two companies. One, Rolls Royce Motors, was the car division and continued to produce vehicles for the ever-growing market. The second part of the company kept the original name of Rolls Royce Limited, but became a nationalized company until 1987 when it was privatized. The new private company was known as Rolls-Royce plc.

Part of the reason for this major change was the advent of the new RB211 turbofan engine. Unable to compete, Rolls Royce began to lose out on sales and despite numerous attempts to rescue the company, it had no choice but to split in 1973.

Other Interests

Rolls Royce went on to produce not just cars, but airplane engines and diesel engines. The earliest aero engine was the Eagle, which came out in 1914. During World War I, the Allies used Rolls Royce engines in nearly half of their military planes.

These engines went on to win prizes and races, with the last Royce-designed engine being the Merlin. His legacy continued its use during World War II, where the Merlin engine was installed in a great number of airplanes for military use.

After the War, Rolls-Royce designed gas turbine engines that proved to be very useful in cutting down on the time needed for commercial aircraft to travel short distances. Jet engines were used for longer trips.

In 1966, Rolls Royce merged with Bristol-Siddeley to form an aero engine company that would go on to produce assorted military airplane engines such as the Olympus and Pegasus. They also came out with the Olympus 593 Mk610 which would be used in the Concorde.

Diesel engines were produced by Rolls Royce, beginning in 1951. These engines were originally designed for farm equipment and other industrial applications, but were later used in regular cars and especially in the locomotive industry.

Rolls Royce Today

Today, the Rolls Royce company still exists, but in several different forms. There is Rolls Royce plc. which is now an engineering company focused on developing turbine engines. Another division is Rolls Royce Motors, which was split off from Rolls Royce Limited back in 1973 and later bought out by Volkswagen.

The final part of the company, Rolls Royce Motor Cars, is actually a BMW subsidiary. They lease the famous Rolls Royce name from its actual owners, the Volkswagen Company.