Facts you might not know about Rolls Royce

Rolls-Royce Limited is a renowned British car-manufacturing and, later, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Sir Frederick Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904.

Did you know Rolls-Royce should always be written with a hyphen in the middle to reflect both the founders’ surnames?

Incidentally a photo of the Charles Rolls and Henry Royce was never taken of them together.

Rolls Royce never quoted BHP/torque figures for their car and when asked they would say it is enough to propel the car.

There is no tachometer in Rolls Royce instead there is Power reserve gauge which functions in a similar way.

The first unibody Roll Royce was Silver shadow and its Bentley counterpart were in production for more than 30 years.

At the Rolls-Royce factories in Crewe and London the cars are always referred to as Royces. They are never called Rollers.

The Rolls-Royce radiator grille is made entirely by hand and eye – no measuring instruments are used.

You will never open an ashtray in a modern Rolls-Royce and find a cigarette end. It empties automatically.

Rolls-Royce cars never, ever break down. However, very occasionally, they do ‘fail to proceed’. Similarly, in the extremely rare event of a starting problem, a Rolls-Royce could be said to have ‘elected to remain stationary’.

Notices have been hung around the factory bearing the legend: ‘Beware silent cars.’

Even today every Rolls-Royce engine is completely hand built.

The cooling capacity of the air-conditioning system in the Silver Spirit is equivalent to that of 30 domestic refrigerators.

No one is certain who designed the Rolls-Royce radiator grille or the interlinked RR badge

Sir Henry Royce’s first job was a newspaper delivery boy for W H Smith & Son Ltd.

Sir Henry Royce was always known as ‘R’ at the factory. The practice of addressing people by their initials, especially on written memorandums, is still continued at the factory.

There are 27 Electric Motors in every Silver Spirit.

Every piece of glass in a Silver Spirit is given a final polish with powdered pumice of a fineness normally used for polishing optical lenses.

The 4 final polishings on some gearbox components was not done with jewellers rouge (which is too coarse) but fine ground oat husks.

The original Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, 60551 – known worldwide by its registration number AX 201 – is quite possibly the most travelled, as well as the most valuable car in the world. Should it ever be sold, estimates of its value range from £10,000,000 – £30,000,000; it is reputed to be insured for £25,000,000.

Sir Henry was once asked the speed of his production line. His immediate reply was something like “I think I saw it move last week

Asked by a lady what would happen if a fault wasn’t picked up by any of the quality inspectors, Sir Henry said “Madam, the man on the gate would not allow the car to leave the premises.”

The hood ornament is called The Spirit of Ecstasy and was commissioned in 1911. Today, the Spirit of Ecstasy is mounted on a mechanism that retracts the ornament into the grille by remote control or automatically in the event of a collision.

More than six out of 10 Rolls-Royce cars ever sold are still roadworthy. The oldest still on the road is a 1904 10hp owned by Thomas Love Jr. of Perth, Scotland.

One of the first Rolls-Royce cars to be developed was the Rolls-Royce 10 which stood for 10 horse power. This was sold for £395.00 back in 1904 and is equivalent to £32,000, only 16 were made.

Arguably the most famous Rolls-Royce car model is the Silver Ghost, 6,000 were originally made and the Ghost part of the name signified the quietness of the engine. The success of the Silver Ghost led Rolls-Royce to open a second factory in Springfield, Massachusetts but closed down after 10 years because people in the USA preferred the British made cars.

The Rolls-Royce R engine is the only engine to obtain land, air and water speed records.

The famous car manufacturer actually stopped manufacturing cars in 1971 after the company was crippled by the development of the RB211 jet engine. The company restarted manufacturing of their cars when they were taken over by various other firms such as Vickers, BMW and Volkswagen.