The meeting at the Midland Hotel in Manchester was arranged by their mutual friend Henry Edmunds. Rolls made a deal to sell all the cars Royce could make. They gave their names to a dynasty of cars that is the definition of super luxury cars around the world, synonymous with perfection and an expression of true wealth.
“It was a time of revolutionary invention, innovation and technological advancement, when many things we take for granted today first appeared. The meeting of Messrs. Rolls and Royce seems almost predestined, their life stories led inexorably to it,” says Andrew Ball of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars about the meeting on May 4, 1904.
Wealth that does not grow poor
The British brand Rolls-Royce has made it so high that if something is the most expensive, it will be called Rolls-Royce in most languages. And everyone knows what they are talking about. But do we really know?
For Henry Royce, the designer of the legendary cars from the British Goodwood, it was primarily about engineering perfection. “Take the best there is and make it even better!” was his motto.
But 100 years ago, things might have been different if he hadn’t hit it off with jovial socialite and aviator Charles Rolls at Manchester’s Midland Hotel. Especially when they added Claude Johnson, the car company’s first director, and his lovely secretary, Miss Eleanor Thornton, to the party.
It was she who became the model for the Spirit of Ecstasy statuette, evoking the goddess Nike, placed on the hood of the cars above the radiators with colonnades in the style of the Greek Pantheon. Although 120 years ago she looked completely different. Her dress flowed seductively and her index finger was on her lips. Some say it was a reference to a secret affair with motoring enthusiast Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who was the first to order the figure for his Silver Ghost.
Take the best there is and make it even better!
