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The Ultimate History of Rolls Royce

Part of the '8 DVD Box Set – Classic Cars' reviewed by John Cooper Running Time - 67 minutes www.greenumbrella.co.uk

As I start this review of the final DVD in this set, I’m conscious that in a number of the earlier ones I’ve declared any preconceptions I may have held about the topic being covered. In the interest of consistency I must admit that whilst filling me with a sense of pride in being British, in reality Rolls Royce’s never really inspired me.

As the DVD begins, it immediately starts to trade on those very emotions playing "Land of Hope and Glory" over the opening credits before going on to explain how the marque is the embodiment of the best of Britain. It also highlights how the very name of the company has passed into our everyday language as a superlative, a point that had escaped me but was blatantly obvious when pointed out.

Returning to the content of the DVD, and again listed for the sake of consistency, the 67 minutes of the DVD consist of the following chapters:

1. Roll Royce Models Reviewed
2. The Rolls Royce Radiator Grill
3. Wood and Leather
4. The Rolls Royce Habit
5. Building the Rolls Royce Engine
6. Rolls Royce Enthusiasts Club Rally
7. Beautiful Body, Perfect paint
8. Cars Across the Millennium

As I’d come to expect by now, the DVD starts in earnest with the early history of the company explaining the meeting between the Honourable Charles Rolls, a successful businessman and car enthusiast, with Henry Royce, an equally successful engineer who had turned his hand to the new car manufacturing industry. In 1904 the first Royce cars, now known as Rolls Royce, were sold through Rolls’ dealership. The first range featured 10, 15, 20 and 30HP models. Even in these earliest of days, the cars featured the still recognisable radiator, more of which later.

Charles Rolls was a noted racing driver of the day and so it was natural that the cars should start to make a name for speed, winning the 1906 Tourist Trophy.

1907 saw the production of the 40/50 model featuring a 6-cylinder, 7-litre engine which due to it’s silver polished chassis and the silence of the engine, soon became know as the Silver Ghost.

Reliability trials were a popular form of competition of the day. Claude Johnson (often referred to as the hyphen in Rolls-Royce) who was responsible for promoting Rolls Royce and demonstrating the capabilities of the new car took delivery of the 13th 40/50 and subjected it to a series of reliability trials between May and August of 1907.

This started with a practise 774-mile run of the Scottish reliability trial. A 2000 mile run including driving from the south coast of England to Scotland locked in top gear followed this. By the end of June it had also competed in the official Scottish Reliability Trial when it won gold medals for excellence in hill climbing, reliability and fuel consumption.

Finally, on 1st July it started a 15,000-mile run under the observation of the RAC. A team of drivers including Johnson and Rolls took 5 weeks to complete the 512-mile course between Glasgow and London 27 times. When the RAC produced a report after the event they said a mere 40 hours and 13 minutes of the 5 weeks had been spent working on the car. The running costs had been £281, two thirds of which was spent on new tyres. It subsequently only cost a further £28 to return the car to showroom condition.

The DVD progresses through the various models and decades until it approaches the end of the 20th century. There is significant time spent here demonstrating how Rolls Royce’s are now manufactured with a fine balance of traditional craftsmanship and modern manufacturing technologies. All radiator grills are still completely hand-built taking 7 hours each to make and a further 6 hours to polish. Despite it’s appearance, none of the panels from which it is constructed is actually flat. It is clearly based on Greek architecture and uses the same techniques employed by Greek engineers thousands of years ago to overcome the optical illusions produced by pillars, which makes them, appear concave.

As the radiator panels are not plated at all, being made instead from high quality stainless steel, the gaps and soldering must be perfect and tolerances of less than a thousandth of an inch are worked to.

The finally the maker puts his own mark on the radiator grill and then attaches the emblem. Originally the letters on the emblem were red, but in 1933 this was changed to black apparently because the red lettering did not fit with the dark body colours often being produced at the time. Enthusiasts however will tell you that the change was in fact to mark the death of Sir Henry Royce in the same year.

At the other end of the technical spectrum, the factory’s new £12M paint plant is shown. The DVD concludes with what I suspect is a later update to the programme, and features the 100 EX experimental car demonstrated in 2002.

This DVD maintains the high standard of the others in the set and makes for a worthy conclusion to these reviews. As with others, it overcomes any preconceptions I had and presents a thoroughly enjoyable documentary featuring a good balance of the history and more modern story.