Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is British by birth and German by ownership.
Volkswagen went on building Rolls-Royce cars at Crewe under a licence that ran to 31 December 2002, and BMW's new company Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited took the marque over at Goodwood, handing the first Phantom to its owner a minute after midnight on 1 January 2003.
Where it sits
Two levels. A figure marks a company boundary crossed; a word means the figure was never published.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
122 years, two owners
The year is coloured by whoever held it at the time.
- 1904 Charles Rolls and Henry Royce were introduced at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on 4 May 1904 and agreed that Rolls would sell every car Royce could build under the joint name Rolls-Royce, two years before the company Rolls-Royce Limited was formed on 15 March 1906.
- 1998 BMW acquired the rights to the Rolls-Royce marque and the RR badge on 28 July 1998 from the aero-engine company Rolls-Royce plc, which had kept the trade marks when the car business was separated from it in the 1970s and licensed them back, so Vickers' sale of the Crewe factory and Bentley to Volkswagen earlier the same month carried no right to the Rolls-Royce name.
- 2003 Volkswagen went on building Rolls-Royce cars at Crewe under a licence that ran to 31 December 2002, and BMW's new company Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited took the marque over at Goodwood, handing the first Phantom to its owner a minute after midnight on 1 January 2003.
BMW
4 marques
The British marques were bought, not built: MINI came with the Rover Group, and the Rolls-Royce name came from the aero-engine maker in a split that sent the Crewe factory and Bentley to Volkswagen. The largest blocks of ordinary shares are listed under members of the Quandt family rather than under a holding company.