It was on this day in 1904 that two men met at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, sparking a revolution in motoring. Charles Rolls met Henry Royce.
Rolls and Royce agreed to form a partnership, and by the end of the year they had made the first Rolls-Royce car. Rolls kept photographs of his products in a pair of albums, now in our Library and Archives at Wroughton.
You should go and see them in the flesh if you can, but to whet your appetite, here are some pictures of the first car, built in Manchester, on a trip to Dartmoor:
As well as the photo albums, we’ve also got a 1905 Rolls-Royce in the Science Museum’s transport collection, believed to have been used by Royce himself (read the full story here).
I’ve talked about it before, so if you want to know more, check out this previous post. And if you want to see the car itself, it’s now, very appropriately, on loan to the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester.