Making a Marque

By Peter Moss/richard Roberts, £95, daltonwatson.com, ISBN 978 1 85443 310 7

Today, the idea of linking Rolls-royce with anything so vulgar as advertising seems unthinkable. But this beautifully-produced 464-page tome shows that clever advertising helped it to establish itself before the marque even existed.

The authors’ research goes all the way back to Charles Rolls’ earliest involvement in the motor trade, selling Panhard et Levassors before creating his own cars. Through extensively reproduced period advertising we see the marque finding its feet through reliability trials and much-touted selling points as silence, ruggedness and simplicity of use. We see the firm weather war and recession, appeal to markets as diverse as the US and India, and play on its august history and heritage as early as the Twenties.

An utterly fascinating take on Rolls-royce’s history as this most genteel of marques asserts itself over direct rivals through slogans and emotive imagery.