On Monday, February 28, 1921, Wallace Porter of Pawtucket, Rhode Island drove the first American-made Rolls-Royce out the gates of the company’s new assembly plant in Springfield, Massachusetts. Rolls-Royce of America would go on to produce almost 3,000 cars before closing in the depths of the Great Depression.
Their production may have been small, but they had an outsized impact on the industry. In opening this factory Rolls-Royce became the first foreign automaker to set up a volume operation to assemble cars in America to avoid high import tariffs. Their move anticipated BMW and all the other transplants who would set up shop in the United States 50 years later.
By 1924, when General Motors was touting what the press was already calling “planned obsolescence,” Rolls-Royce of America was instead updating older models for their owners. They were adding front brakes, changing to left hand drive, re-bodying, and more. This, and the reputation of the Springfield-based service department, established the legend of Rolls-Royce cars lasting forever.
In addition to manufacturing new cars, Springfield workers reconditioned Rolls-Royce motorcars taken in trade and sold them with factory warranty. This was one of the first examples of “certified used cars” that are ubiquitous today. This was a uniquely American innovation.
When Rolls-Royce came to Springfield they took over a factory that had been built by Hendee, the makers of Indian Motocycles. Some years after Rolls-Royce closed, the corporate successor to Indian reacquired the property. Today that company - now called Tite Flex - manufactures high performance hose, and one of their customers is Rolls-Royce.
At the dawn of the Roaring Twenties, the automobile business was exploding. The epicenter was the United States, where 122 motorcar manufacturers were producing 80% of the world’s cars. Seen from the perspective of Europe, the United States appeared a land of limitless capability, and endless opportunity. Europeans were recovering from the destruction of the Great War, even as America had come through untouched.
The result: much of Europe was served by horse drawn wagons, while Americans had new trucks. In Europe, cars were for rich people. Here, Henry Ford put a $500 Model T in every farmer’s yard. While Europeans built cars by the hundreds, Ford delivered his by the millions. By 1920 the upstarts at General Motors had caught on to mass production, and they were on the way to surpassing Ford.
Assembly techniques had been refined during the war for the speedy production of guns whose parts could be interchanged in the field. With the arrival of peace those techniques were applied to produce furniture, hand tools, engines, and even whole cars. All this change, and the mobilization for war, had made some Americans quite rich. Those people might have owned assembly lines, but they wanted personal, handcrafted items in their own lives. That was where Rolls-Royce of England saw an opportunity.
It was 1907 when Britain’s Autocar magazine took an early Rolls-Royce for a ride and proclaimed it, “The best car in the world.” The motoring world was small, and news spread fast. Even if they had never seen one, most American car enthusiasts knew of Rolls-Royce.
That thought was foremost in the minds of Rolls-Royce management when they joined with American financiers to create Rolls-Royce of America. Their selection of a Massachusetts factory larger than the company’s main plant in Derby, England revealed the scale of their dream. They named Joseph Skinner, one of the leading businessmen of New England, to their board. H C Beaver joined the company as treasurer, a position he had held at the large Stevens factory in Springfield. Rolls-Royce transferred other key men from their plant in Derby, England.
Rolls-Royce began production with the car we now know as the Silver Ghost, though at the time it was simply called the Rolls-Royce, being the only model offered. That car would be replaced by a successor, the New Phantom, a few years later.
Even with a modern plant, the American Rolls-Royce was a cottage industry compared to Ford and General Motors, who emerged as giants in the 1920s. Each of those companies was building thousands of cars a day, while Rolls-Royce turned out 250 cars in a typical year. Yet those cars were made to last. More than 30% of the Springfield Rolls-Royce production survives today, making them one of the most durable motorcar lines ever produced.
In 1996 Rolls-Royce of England produced a limited run of cars whose trims and colors were based on the styles from the original American Rolls-Royce catalog. Springfield native Peter Picknelly ordered the first one and put it on display in the lobby of his hotel in Springfield’s city center. The car is still used to transport couples who hold wedding receptions at the Sheraton Monarch Place.
The Rolls-Royce Owner’s Club of America ( www.rroc.org ) has devoted its spring issue of the Flying Lady magazine to the 100th anniversary of Roll-Royce in America. Members can see it online and in print any day now. The Museum of Springfield History www.springfieldmuseums.org will be showcasing content on its website as well, starting later today. I will also have material on this blog – robisonservice.blogspot.com
J E Robison Service still maintains Rolls-Royce motorcars on a corner of the former industrial park that was home to Rolls-Royce of America, at 347 Page Boulevard.
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