The Pursuit of Perfection
Among the curiosities of the Paris auto show was a pair of uncommonly low and sleek-looking Rolls-Royce limousines. Rolls spokesmen brushed off inquiries about the cars with a casual "special coachwork jobs, old boy." In fact, as Rolls will announce this week, the cars on display in Paris were new models--the first restyled Rolls-Royce autos in eight years.
The new Rolls boasts twin horizontal headlights, a lower hood, wider grille and hotter engine (around 270 h.p.). For the select minority who can afford Rolls prices (from $15,655 in the U.S. for the Silver Cloud II to $27,617 for the Park Ward), this was big news. But for Rolls-Royce Ltd. itself, autos are now little more than a sideline. Since World War II, the company has diversified into everything from rocket engines to nuclear propulsion systems for submarines. By so doing, it has become one of Britain's notable growth companies; since 1950 its sales have soared from $134 million to $365 million last year and its earnings from $1.7 million to $7 million.
Jet Boost. Rolls-Royce's founding genius was the late Henry Royce, a compulsive tinkerer who in 1904 built an auto so silent and efficient that it won him the financial backing of Charles Stewart Rolls, an elegant aristocrat who owned a London auto sales agency. In 1906 the pair began turning out the famed Silver Ghost, a car that stayed in production for 19 years. Royce was a fanatic on mechanical perfection, and his high standards have become the company's most hallowed tradition. At Rolls-Royce's auto plant in northwest England, Rolls cars (which are called "Royces" around the plant) are built with unhurried precision. Every part is hand-ground and matched to its mate. All told, the assembly and testing of a Rolls take about two weeks, v. four hours for a Cadillac.
This pursuit of perfection, transferred to aircraft engines, gave Rolls its finest hour. In the Battle of Britain, Rolls-Royce's Merlin engine helped give the R.A.F.'s Spitfires and Hurricanes the edge over the Luftwaffe. And on the strength of its World War II experience in building the first Allied jet engines, Rolls decided to stake its postwar future primarily on jet aircraft. Today, 56% of all commercial jet planes in the free world are powered by Rolls-Royce engines. Nearly 80% of the company's sales--and, in all probability, nearly 100% of its profits--come from its jet engine division.
The Think House. One reason for Rolls's pre-eminence lies in the fact that the company is run by engineers who have never compromised their technical standards to increase profit margins. Rolls-Royce's chairman, aloof Lord Kindersley, 63, is a banker who also presides over
London's Lazard Bros. & Co. But the company's operational boss is brilliant Engineer James D. Pearson. 54, and of its 13 directors, ten hold engineering degrees.
Rolls-Royce earnings are sure to show some drop this year because of the worldwide slump in aircraft production and a new British tax law severely limiting the depreciation write-offs that British companies can claim on the cars they buy for their executives. As a result, Rolls's 1962 auto production is unlikely to top 1,800 cars, v. 2,400 last year. But the company remains unworried about its prospects--partly out of confidence in its "think house." a converted country lodge where 20 Ph.D.-level scientists putter about in a small laboratory. Out of the "think house" has come an idea that may hold great promise for Rolls's future--plans for a small auxiliary jet engine that can lift 16 times its own weight straight up. Rolls's hope is that as the supersonic age unfolds, the great jetliners will use such auxiliary jets to land and take off vertically, thereby eliminating the need for ever longer and more expensive runways.
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