The History of Rolls-Royce

Short Answer

Rolls-Royce began when Charles Rolls met Henry Royce in Manchester on 4 May 1904, and the company was incorporated in 1906. It also became a maker of aero engines, and in 1971 the car business became a separate company. Since 2003 Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has been part of the BMW Group, building its cars at Goodwood in England; it is unrelated to the aero-engine company Rolls-Royce plc.

Who founded Rolls-Royce?

Two men with very different backgrounds. Henry Royce (1863–1933) was an engineer who had established his own electrical and mechanical business, Royce Limited, in 1884. Charles Stewart Rolls (1877–1910) studied engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in January 1902 opened C. S. Rolls & Co. in Fulham, one of Britain’s early car dealerships.

How did Rolls meet Royce?

Through a car. Royce’s first car, the Royce 10 H.P., took to the road on 1 April 1904 with a twin-cylinder engine he had designed and built himself. Henry Edmunds introduced Rolls to Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on 4 May 1904, and Rolls agreed to sell every car Royce could make, under the Rolls-Royce name. The Rolls-Royce 10 H.P., launched the same year, was the first car built and sold under that name.

When did Rolls-Royce become a company?

Rolls-Royce Limited was incorporated on 15 March 1906. Claude Johnson, Rolls’s business partner, became its first managing director. The same year the company launched the six-cylinder 40/50 H.P., and Johnson named one of its cars the Silver Ghost. The Spirit of Ecstasy mascot, commissioned by Johnson from the sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes, was registered as the company’s intellectual property on 6 February 1911.

What happened to Charles Rolls?

He was also a pioneer aviator, and in 1910 he flew non-stop across the English Channel and back. On 12 July 1910, while competing at Bournemouth, the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off and he was killed, aged 32. Henry Royce lived until 22 April 1933; he spent the last 16 years of his life at West Wittering, eight miles from Goodwood, where Rolls-Royce cars are built today.

How did aero engines become part of the story?

At the start of the First World War, Royce designed the Eagle, the first aero engine the company produced. In the late 1930s Ernest Hives led the split of the car and aero-engine activities into separate divisions, and from 1939 to 1945 the company concentrated entirely on aero engines. In the Battle of Britain in 1940, the Rolls-Royce Merlin powered the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire.

How did car making change after the war?

The company moved from supplying chassis for coachbuilders towards building complete cars. The Silver Wraith of 1946 opened a post-war Rationalised Range with shared parts, and the Silver Dawn of 1949 was the first complete Rolls-Royce, with coachwork assembled in-house. The Silver Shadow of 1965 was the first Rolls-Royce offered only as a complete car. Otto explains how these cars changed the company in his article on the legendary cars that defined Rolls-Royce.

Why did the car and aero-engine businesses separate?

Because of a crisis on the aviation side. In 1971 problems with the RB211 jet engine led to Rolls-Royce being taken into state ownership, and the car business was set up as a separate company, Rolls-Royce Motors Limited. Rolls-Royce Motors became a public company in 1973 and was bought by the engineering group Vickers in 1980. The aero-engine company returned to the private sector in 1987 and is today Rolls-Royce plc.

How did BMW come to own Rolls-Royce?

Through a split sale in 1998. Volkswagen bought Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the Crewe car business that also built Bentley, from Vickers. In July 1998 the BMW Group acquired the brand and naming rights for Rolls-Royce motor cars from Rolls-Royce plc. Volkswagen kept Rolls-Royce until the end of 2002; from 2003 the BMW Group took over responsibility for the brand, and Bentley stayed at Crewe under Volkswagen. Otto tells the wider story of the group in the history of BMW.

How did the Goodwood era begin?

With a new factory and a new car at the same moment. Ground was broken for the new plant at Goodwood, West Sussex, on 24 August 2001, to a design by Nicholas Grimshaw’s practice. At one minute past midnight on 1 January 2003, the first Phantom VII was handed over there, the start of production at what Rolls-Royce calls the Home of Rolls-Royce.

Where does Rolls-Royce stand today?

The range grew from one model to several families: the Ghost was introduced in 2009, the Wraith in 2013, the Dawn in 2016 and the Cullinan in 2018, and Black Badge versions arrived in 2016. On 18 October 2022 Rolls-Royce unveiled Spectre, its first fully electric car. In 2024 it announced an investment of more than £300 million to extend Goodwood, where more than 2,500 people work. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is a wholly owned BMW Group subsidiary, unrelated to the aero-engine company Rolls-Royce plc.

Common Questions

• Is Rolls-Royce Motor Cars the same company as Rolls-Royce plc? No. The car and aero-engine businesses became separate companies in 1971. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BMW Group, while Rolls-Royce plc is the aero-engine company.
• What was the first car sold as a Rolls-Royce? The Rolls-Royce 10 H.P., launched in 1904. It grew out of Royce’s own 10 H.P., which first took to the road on 1 April 1904.
• Where are Rolls-Royce cars built? At Goodwood in West Sussex, England, where production began on 1 January 2003.
• Who created the Spirit of Ecstasy? The sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes, commissioned by Claude Johnson. It was registered as Rolls-Royce’s intellectual property on 6 February 1911, and Eleanor Thornton is widely believed to have been the model.

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