Roll on renaissance

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CEO tom purves believes that rolls-royce is relatively protected from the economic fallout.

Luxury carmaker Rolls-Royce has been manufacturing cars since 1904. New CEO, Tom Purves, talks to Kat Slowe about the car's history and the growth of customised cars in the Middle East.

"You cannot touch a shadow, a cloud, a ghost, a phantom, a wraith, a dawn, a seraph or a spirit," Tom Purves, CEO of luxury car maker Rolls-Royce says proudly.

He finishes the list with a flourish, obviously proud of having remembered so many of the iconic Rolls-Royce titles. He missed out a few. But then Rolls-Royce Cars, with a rich history spanning over a century, has produced many such names.

Established by engineer Frederick Royce and car trader Charles Rolls in 1904, Rolls-Royce manufactured some of the first cars ever produced. The luxury carmaker still produces around 1,200 cars a year and at a time when most car manufacturers are cutting costs and tightening their belts, it plans to launch a new model.

The new RR4 model, available from January 2010, is rumoured to be called the ‘Silver Ghost,' in a resurrection of the first title ever given to a Rolls-Royce car. And though Purves refuses to confirm or deny this, it seems likely that the name of the future Rolls-Royce will follow in the same vein as previous models.

"The ethereal nature [of the names] describes the emotion that surrounds the car," Purves explains, accounting for the names' origins. The first name, ‘Ghost,' was coined by a 1904 review of the firm's first production car, the 40/50 horsepower, by The Motor.

"They wrote," Purves quotes: "‘This car is ghostlike in the way it goes - very quiet engine, very smooth.' And in those days cars were not quiet and they were not smooth, and this was a remarkable thing."

The name ‘Ghost' was adopted by Rolls-Royce in 1907 for its new demonstration vehicle. The firm used metallic silver paint - very unusual in those days - and silver-plated all of the accessories, including the lamps and the handbrake levers. "They called it the Silver Ghost," says Purves.

It was the start of a legacy. A century later and Rolls-Royce is now owned by BMW, having been sold by engineering firm, Vickers in the late 90s (Vickers bought it after it went into receivership in 1980). Today the brand remains the same and Purves, who has been CEO of the company for less than a year, is determined to ensure its survival. After all, it is not just the brand's legacy at stake, but also his own.

Purves' very first job at the age of seventeen was as a student engineering apprentice at the Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe, despite the protests of his father, who also worked in the car industry.

"My father was in the car business and I always wanted to be in the car business, and he spent an enormous amount of time trying to convince me to become a chartered accountant," Purves says wryly.

"Scottish school boys are either meant to be lawyers or chartered accountants, or ministers of the Church. When I finally convinced him there was no way I was going to be one of those three things he helped me join the same business he was in."

Purves worked for Rolls-Royce for nineteen years before moving to BMW, and was delighted when his new company bought the Rolls-Royce brand.

The sale only happened, he believes, due to a mistake. In 1998 the Rolls-Royce car business was effectively for sale and in those days Rolls-Royce and Bentley were operating under the same company. BMW was negotiating to buy the business from Vickers, and Volkswagen offered a lot more money.

"Volkswagen won the bidding war," Purves says, "but what they didn't realise was that they weren't buying Rolls-Royce, they were buying Bentley, the Crewe factory, and the assets of the cars.

"Rolls-Royce actually belonged to the Rolls-Royce turbine company and they had not done their due diligence. The Rolls-Royce turbine company turned round to BMW and said: ‘look, actually we would like you to run this' because we had worked with them on aircraft engines for years and BMW knew Rolls-Royce very well."

At that point there were two separate brands - Bentley was being built at Crewe and for a short space of time they built Rolls-Royces in order to fulfil customers' orders. But Rolls-Royce Cars under BMW quickly started with a new car in a completely new factory. Between 1998 and 2003 BMW spent time developing both the model and the factory, before once again starting to deliver cars.

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