Rolling revolution

Rolls-royce looking back

If you're a regular air traveller, chances are you've been thrust into the air courtesy of a Rolls-Royce engine at some point.

Despite the obvious link to the classic luxury English automobile, the company sold their automotive operations to British defence company Vickers in 1980, and has since concentrated on building its four other businesses: civil aviation, energy/gas, marine and defence.

The history of Rolls-Royce dates back to 1884, when English engineer Frederick Henry Royce established FH Royce and Co, to manufacture dynamos, electric motors and electric cranes.

He built his first motor car in early 1904. A later meeting with Charles Stewart Rolls, whose company, CS Rolls and Co sold quality cars, resulted in the forging of a business alliance in which Rolls would have the exclusive right to sell Royce's cars, bearing the name Rolls-Royce. The men would go on to launch successful engines and automobiles including the Phantom although the company's jet engine operations came to comprise the largest portion Rolls-Royce's sales.

In the late 1960s Rolls-Royce undertook development of a new, powerful jet engine, the RB211. In order to beat its competitor General Electric, the company agreed to a fixed-price contract with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, to supply the RB211 turbofan for Lockheed's L-1011 TriStar wide-body airliner.

Rolls-Royce management made several miscalculations in the process, including an underestimation of the engine's development costs, sending the company to bankruptcy in February 1971.

Rolls-Royce was nationalised, and the British government met the company's financial obligations.

It subsequently was restructured into two separate entities: Rolls-Royce Ltd, comprising its jet engine operations, was established in 1971 and became a government-owned corporation; Rolls-Royce Motor Holdings Ltd, comprising the automobile and diesel engine operations, was created in 1973 and returned to private stockholders. In 1980 Rolls-Royce Motor Holdings Ltd was acquired by Vickers.

The company did however, retain the rights to the Rolls-Royce name. Vickers, which was acquired by Rolls-Royce in 1999, sold the company to Volkswagen AG in 1998.

In 2003 BMW bought control of the name and the manufacturing of Rolls-Royce cars.