Henry Royce is the co-founder of the Rolls-Royce automobile manufacturer. Royce began his career by making dynamos and electric cranes under a limited liability company called F.H. Royce & Company. Increased competition of the same product from countries such as Germany and the United States caused Henry to re-think his company’s position in the market and to consider looking into automobile production. Royce was unimpressed with the model cars out on the market and purchased a few only to modify them and to try and make them better by fixing them up in the corner of his workshop at his company. One of Royce’s friends would aid Royce in getting the cars shown at a showroom where he would go on to meet Charles Rolls who was interested in purchasing some of the models of Royce that were on display.
Royce and Charles would create a partnership and their first Rolls-Royce model car was unveiled at the Paris Salon in December 1904. Henry was known for being a perfectionist and even in ill-health wanted to know all the intricate details of what was going on with each model car’s design specifications to make sure that they were perfect. The car industry hasn’t had much optimism lately with the announcement of General Motors being under bankruptcy protection but with the re-branding of the company under way hopefully some of the executives in the company will have the same passion about cars as Henry Royce did. Here’s a quote from Henry on his ideas about perfectionism…
| “Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. If it doesn’t exist, create it. Accept nothing as nearly right or good enough”. – Henry Royce |
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