"Rolls on the Rocks"

“Rolls On the Rocks” is a book which Robert Grey wrote in under three weeks at the behest of Compton Press, of Compton Chamberlayne, Salisbury, Wilts., who sell it for £1.50, as a current commentary on the sad prevailing predicament of the Rolls-Royce Company. A rather cruel way of emphasising this, but a notable piece, along with Eoin Young’s aforesaid book, of “instant-journalism”.

Nothing much that is new emerges from Grey’s book but it is nicely produced and presumably collectors of all R-R items will want it. That is no criticism of the author, because there is little or nothing new to write about Rolls-Royce cars unless one drives or describes individual cars, unless, one day, liberal quotes from the legendary “Rolls-Royce Bibles” are possible. Grey quotes short extracts from these—to this reviewer they reflect some interesting engineering ideas held by Sir Henry Royce, as, for instance, his suggestion for testing aluminium pistons in Eagle aero-engines by making one larger than the eleven other pistons, to cause it deliberately to seize, on an articulated rod, which Royce thought “a fairly conclusive and very instructive” experiment.

This little 95-page book concludes with topical material devoted to R-R Company activities and financial figures. The photographs have been used many times before.