Founded in 1904 by Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, they named the car after their own names and called it ‘Rolls-Royce’. The first car made by both men was the Rolls-Royce 10 HP. Along with cars, Rolls-Royce also built jet engines.
Only one man is authorized to paint the coach line for Rolls-Royce. His name is Mark Counts. Even to date, no robots or machines are used to do this painting job. With his focus and precision, only Mark is allowed to do so, and he always needs to be extra careful as there is no eraser in case he makes a mistake.
Until 1946, Rolls-Royce did not build or sell the whole car. They only specialized only in the construction of the engine and chassis and used Hoopers, Barkers or Park Ward to create a body and coach around it. The first complete car built by Rolls-Royce was called the Silver Dawn, which was produced between 1949 and 1955 and within that short span of time, only 760 were made.
Hong Kong was the highest number of Rolls-Royce cars in the world. Given the fact that Hong Kong was under the Britishers from 1841 to 1997, this doesn’t seem odd.
Both Volkswagen and BMW always showed great interest in acquiring Rolls-Royce. In 1998 BMW was outbid by Volkswagen (£430 million over £340 million), but it turns out they bought only part of the company. Eventually, BMW owned the name and logo, while Volkswagen had rights to the mascot and grill. They made a deal which included that, from 2003 on, BMW was allowed to produce the complete car under the Rolls-Royce name.
