In Part One we saw how two men of genius, Henry Royce and Charles Rolls, met and formed the company. In Part Two we saw how Rolls-Royce turned itself into not only a civil aerospace engine manufacturer but also one of the three leading gas-turbine engine producers in the world. However, by the 1970s Rolls-Royce was forced into receivership. The second part ends with Rolls-Royce recovering under government control and preparing itself for privatisation.
In this book, Peter Pugh shows how Rolls-Royce took the courageous decision to invest in a "family of engines". Their resolve was severely tested in the recession of the early 1990s, but the rewards came through from the mid-1990s onwards, winning large orders all over the world.
At the end of the 1990s, Rolls-Royce extended its reach into the marine and energy markets by buying Vickers, which had bought Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in 1980 and sold it in 1998 to VW. In becoming the global company that it is in 2002, Rolls-Royce forged a close alliance with BMW to produce the BR710 series aero-engines, and also with Pratt & Whitney, Fiat Avio, MTU and the Japanese Aero Engines Corporation to produce the V-2500.
In the military engine field, Rolls-Royce collaborated with engine makers in Europe and the USA to produce helicopter engines and worked with others to ensure it was a major supplier on the world's two new fighters, the Eurofighter and the Joint Strike Fighter. In the mid-1990s, it made a decisive move in the USA by buying the long-established Allison Engine Company with which it had associated since the 1920s.
Finally, as always with Rolls-Royce, this is a book about people - the knowledgeable, skilful, hard-working people that have made Rolls-Royce Britain's foremost engineering company, led in this period by a man, Sir Ralph Robins, who stands alongside the great Royce, Rolls and Johnson, who we read about in Part One, and Ernest Hives, who featured in Part Two.
