Rolls-Royce: The Years of Endeavour, 1978, 1978

Document Type: Book (Historical Study).

Purpose: Informational.

Authority: Author Expertise.

Series: This is the second of three books in the history.

Scope: Historical study of the Rolls-Royce company, written by Ian Lloyd, an independent historian.

From the dust jacket: "Eagle, Condor, Kestrel and Merlin, Silver Ghost, Phantom and Bentley 3½ Litre - these are the distinctive and now famous names which mark the lineage of Rolls-Royce's evolution in the 1920s and 1930s, the period covered by the present part of lan Lloyd's wide-ranging history of the company."

Contents (from the dust jacket): "Finding itself, at the end of the First World War, with an international reputation for its products, Rolls-Royce set out, under the inspired leadership of Sir Henry Royce and Claude Johnson, to entrench its newly won supremacy in the field of automobile and aeronautical engineering.

For the first time the full story of Rolls-Royce achievement - the mistakes, the failures and the arguments as well as the outstanding successes - has now been told. The conflict of policy which led to the eventual collapse of Silver Ghost and Phantom manufacture in the United States presents a fascinating contrast to such successes of commercial policy as the acquisition of Bentley Motors and the engineering brilliance which led eventually to the development of the famous 'R' aero engine for the Schneider Trophy Winners, the prototype Merlin and the Phantom 11 Chassis, considered by the connoisseurs of engineering excellence to be amongst the finest motor vehicles ever built.

The author, who had full access to all the company's archives, including the memoranda written by Sir Henry Royce from Le Canadel and West Wittering, has revealed for the first time the complex interplay between engineering and commercial philosophy which lay behind these achievements. Skillfully set in the economic context of the postwar years and the Great Depression, the book takes the story of Rolls-Royce's development forward to the last of the great Phantoms of the vintage era, rearmament and the approach of the Second World War. It is a study, over two decades, of the intricate relationship between personality, technical achievement and economic survival."