23 Facts About Rolls-Royce Limited

Rolls-Royce Limited was a British luxury car and later an aero-engine manufacturing business established in 1904 in Manchester, United Kingdom by the partnership of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce.

Rolls-Royce Limited has built an enduring reputation for development and manufacture of engines for defence and civil aircraft.

The useful portions were bought by a new government-owned company named Rolls-Royce Limited which continued the core business but sold the holdings in British Aircraft Corporation almost immediately and transferred ownership of the profitable but now financially insignificant car division to Rolls-Royce Motors Holdings Limited, which it sold to Vickers in 1980.

Rolls-Royce Limited obtained consent to drop 1971 from its name in 1977.

Rolls-Royce Limited business remained nationalised until 1987 when, after renaming the owner Rolls-Royce Limited plc, the government sold it to the public.

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Rolls-Royce Limited made his first car, a two-cylinder Royce 10, in his Manchester factory in 1904.

Rolls-Royce Limited was formed on 15 March 1906, by which time it was apparent that new premises were required for production of cars.

In March 1908, Claude Johnson, Commercial Managing Director and sometimes described as the hyphen in Rolls-Royce Limited, succeeded in persuading Royce and the other directors that Rolls-Royce Limited should concentrate exclusively on the new model, and all the earlier models were duly discontinued.

Rolls-Royce Limited stopped production of the new Bentley 8 Litre, which was threatening sales of their current Phantom, disposed of remaining Bentley assets and using just the Bentley name and its repute.

Immediately after World War II until 2002, standard Bentley and Rolls-Royce Limited cars were usually nearly identical – Bentleys were badge engineered; only the radiator grille and minor details differed.

In 1939, Rolls-Royce brought one of the specialist coachbuilders completely in-house by buying the remaining capital of Park Ward Limited which, since 1936, in conjunction with Rolls-Royce had been building short production runs of all-metal saloon bodies on Bentley chassis.

In 1959, Rolls-Royce Limited bought coachbuilder H J Mulliner and the two businesses were put together as H J Mulliner Park Ward.

Rolls-Royce Limited took over Sentinel's Shrewsbury factory for diesel engine production and all its diesel work was transferred there.

However, this position was quickly reversed and Rolls-Royce Limited was persuaded by the War Office to manufacture fifty air-cooled V8 engines under licence from Renault.

However, with the exception of Brazil Straker in Bristol Rolls-Royce Limited resisted pressure to license production to other manufacturers, fearing that the engines' much admired quality and reliability would risk being compromised.

In December 1942, over a "five-shilling meal" at the Swan and Royal in Clitheroe, Stanley Hooker and Ernest Hives of Rolls-Royce Limited agreed with Spencer Wilks of the Rover Car Company that Rolls-Royce Limited would take over top secret work on the development of the jet engine.

An exchange of assets followed with Rover and in the post-World War II period Rolls-Royce Limited made significant advances in gas turbine engine design and manufacture.

In 1966 Rolls-Royce Limited acquired Bristol Siddeley and incorporated it as the Bristol Siddeley division.

New owner, Rolls-Royce Limited, had among its board members Lord Cole, Sir Arnold Weinstock, Hugh Conway, Dr Stanley Hooker, Sir William Cook, Sir St John Elstub, and Sir Charles Elworthy .

Rolls-Royce Limited Motors' permitted uses of the various Rolls-Royce Limited trade marks was very precisely defined.

Name of Rolls-Royce Limited was changed to Rolls-Royce Limited on 31 December 1977 the end of the company's financial year.

The original Rolls-Royce Limited incorporated in 1906 and still in liquidation had been renamed Rolls-Royce Realisations Limited and had consented in March 1977 to the company being named Rolls-Royce Limited.

Rolls-Royce Limited was replaced by plc in the summer of 1986 so shares could be offered to the public and traded on sharemarkets.