A brief history

1904

Engineer Henry Royce meets car dealer Charles Rolls. The two men m agree to join forces and launch a new company, which rules for nearly n a century as the world’s most celebrated hyphenated surname combination, c until usurped in the early Nineties by cricket statistician upstarts u Duckworth and Lewis.

1907

The Silver Ghost is declared ‘the best car in the world’ after clocking up 14,371 continuous miles in a reliability trial, driving from London to Glasgow and back no fewer than 13 times. This is particularly extraordinary as it usually only takes people one visit to decide they don’t want to be in Glasgow.

1935

A Rolls-Royce engine powers the world’s first 300mph car. OK, admittedly it’s the 37-litre, 2,300bhp plane engine fitted to Malcolm Campbell’s C Bluebird land-speed racer, but let’s not get hung up on technicalities. t Your move, Chiron.

1958

Advertising ace David Ogilvy reveals a marketing campaign for the t new Silver Cloud, proclaiming: “At 60mph the loudest noise in this new n Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” Company bosses immediately i fire the Rolls engineer responsible for fitting the Silver Cloud with such an impertinently noisy clock.

1971

According to popular legend, rock drummer Keith Moon ends a debauched night out by driving a Roller into a hotel swimming pool in Flint, Michigan. Subsequent fact checking reveals the story to be incorrect in just a couple of tiny details. First, the car was a Lincoln Continental, not a Rolls-Royce. Second, it was never actually driven into a swimming pool, but instead stayed safely parked on land. Still, you know what they say. The Seventies. If you remember it accurately, you probably weren’t Keith Moon.

1973

Rolls-Royce’s car and aircraft engine divisions finally separate, ending decades of unnecessary confusion for customers who only came only into the showroom for a Silver Cloud, but left with a 40,000bhp RB211 turbofan.

1975

The Carmargue is launched, the first Rolls-Royce built to metric dimensions. Before this point, all Rolls-Royces have seen their length measured in fathoms, and their weights in ‘Blenheim Palaces’.

2015

Amid rumours it is developing an SUV, Rolls admits it has started work on what it describes as a “high-sided vehicle”. “What on earth does a high-sided vehicle look like?” asks the world.

2018

Rolls whips the covers from the new Cullinan. “Ahh, so thatÕs what a high-sided vehicle looks like,” says the world. “Any chance you could put those covers back on?”