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* The first 10 hp Rolls-Royce was sold
for £395...
Today it is worth over £250,000.
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* More than six out of ten of all
Rolls-Royce Motor cars built are still road worthy.
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* At the Rolls-Royce factories in Crewe
and London the cars are always referred to as Royces. They are never
called Rollers.
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* The Rolls-Royce radiator grille is made
entirely by hand and eye. No measuring instruments are used.
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* It takes one man one day to make a
Rolls-Royce radiator, and then five hours are spent polishing it.
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* The Rolls-Royce radiator was not
registered as a trademark until 1974.
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* It takes over 800 man-hours to make the
body of a Phantom VI.
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* During the First World War, Rolls-Royce
made rifles.
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* You will never open an ashtray in a
modern Rolls-Royce and find a cigarette end. It empties automatically.
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* A Rolls-Royce does not break down.
It "fails to proceed".
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* Notices have been hung around the
factory bearing the legend: "Beware silent cars".
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* Even today every Rolls-Royce engine is
completely hand built.
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* The
cooling capacity of the air-conditioning system in the Silver Spirit is
equivalent to that of 30 domestic refrigerators.
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* No one is certain who designed the
Rolls-Royce radiator grille or the interlinked RR badge.
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* The hydraulic tappets on Rolls-Royce
and Bentley motor cars are given a natural finish of a 16-millionth of an
inch.
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* The oldest known Rolls-Royce still on
the road is the 1904 10hp owned by Mr. Thomas Love Jr. of Scotland.
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* Rolls-Royce
did not make a complete car until after the Second World War. Before
that they made only chassis, the bodies being added by outside
coachbuilders.
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* Sir Henry Royce's first job was a
newspaper delivery boy for W H Smith and Son Ltd.
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* Sir Henry Royce was always known as "R"
at the factory. The practice of addressing people by their initials,
especially on written memorandums, is still continued at the factory.
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* In 1949 an Italian owner, seeking
permission to modify his Rolls-Royce, commissioned a seance to call up Henry
Royce's spirit. Rolls-Royce legend has it that the advice from beyond
the veil was: "Consult your authorized distributor."
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* Examine the coachline that extends the
full length of the Silver Spirit, you may be surprised to learn that it is
applied by hand. This unerring line is 15' 6" long.
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* At one time, Rolls-Royce engines held
World Speed Records in the Air, on Land and on Water, simultaneously.
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* It is possible that Rolls-Royce Motors
is the best known British company name in the World. Letters have been
received from remote corners of the globe addressed to the Royal Family,
care of Rolls-Royce England.
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* There are 27 Electric Motors in every
Silver Spirit.
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* The Vicar of St. Marys, Nantwich took a
Rolls-Royce into his church and blessed it, along with fruit & vegetables at
the Harvest Festival service. A member of the congregation remarked,
"It's going in for it's first service".
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* The badge on the Rolls-Royce was
changed from Red to Black not, as popularly believed to commemorate Henry
Royce's death, but because Royce himself decided Black was aesthetically
more appropriate. Some customers complained that the red badge often
clashed with the color of the car. The Prince of Wales was
particularly outspoken on the subject.
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* Every piece of glass in a Silver Spirit
is given a final polish with powdered pumice of a fineness normally used for
polishing optical lenses.
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* Just
inside the main entrance to the offices at the Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe,
there is a bust of Henry Royce facing one of Charles Rolls.
For many years the bust of Royce stood in No 1 shop at the Derby factory and
contained his ashes, until they were sent to Alwalton church were Royce had been christened.
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* The
4 final polishings on some gearbox
components was not done with jewelers rouge (which is too coarse) but fine
ground oat husks.
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* Although he designed some of the great
aero engines of all time, Royce never travelled in an aircraft.