ROLLS-ROYCE: 120 YEARS OF INFLUENCE

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars mark the 120th anniversary of the first meeting between Henry Royce and The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls.

To celebrate this auspicious anniversary, Rolls-Royce considers the historical, technological, and social context in which the marque came into being and the impact and influence of the Rolls-Royce name over its 120 years.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars mark the 120th anniversary of the first meeting between Henry Royce and The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls. The founders’ personal stories, the history of the company they founded and its motor cars are well known and available to view elsewhere on the Rolls-Royce PressClub.

To celebrate this auspicious anniversary, Rolls-Royce considers the historical, technological, and social context in which the marque came into being and the impact and influence of the Rolls-Royce name over its 120 years. But to fully understand the marque’s origins and legacy, one must first reach a little further back in time and examine the founders’ activities in the years immediately prior to that first, world-changing encounter in 1904.

Rolls and Royce fulfilled their mission to create ‘the best car in the world’. They gave their names to a dynasty of motor cars that defined and continues to define, superluxury motoring across the world.

But perhaps their crowning achievement is to have made Rolls-Royce the global exemplar of excellence. Practically every product, service, device, and technology that has been invented since 1904 has aspired to be ‘the Rolls-Royce of…’ its industry or sector. The standard they set 120 years ago is still driving innovation and improvement everywhere – including within the company they created.