A Rolls-Royce Triumph

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31654, 15 April 1968, Page 8

A Rolls-Royce Triumph

The achievement of the great motor engineering firm, Rolls-Royce, in winning a United States airbus engine contract potentially worth £lOOO million has been warmly welcomed in Britain. The contract will contribute significantly to Britain’s balance of payments over a long period of years. It was announced on March 29 that Rolls-Royce and the American Lockheed Aircraft Corporation had won orders for 144 airbuses, to be powered by the RB2II engine. According to a Rolls-Royce spokesman, this was the climax of a psychological war waged by the British firm virtually from 1954, since when it had been its constant aim “to secure a major engine “ order in a major American airframe for a major “American operator”.

Some 60 per cent of commercial airlines in the United States already use Rolls-Royce engines. But until 16 months ago the firm’s ambition to beat the great American engine designers, General Electric and Pratt and Whitney, on their own ground, was still far from being realised. It was then that RollsRoyce mounted what is now regarded as the most dramatic sales campaign in the history of the aircraft industry. Top officials of the firm travelled some 230 times to the United States; and more than £350,000 was spent on their sales campaign. The cost of the research, design, and development programme for the engine exceeded £5 million. American airlines had to be persuaded that Rolls-Royce could produce a more efficient engine than any rival designer; a rising “Buy American” barrier had to be surmounted. Above all, prospective buyers had to be assured that delivery dates could and would be met

Opposition in the United States included a campaign within Congress itself, which was not indifferent to the argument that if the engine contract went outside the country thousands of American workers would lose their jobs. The devaluation of sterling gave Rolls-Royce a useful advantage, enabling it to reduce its price for the RB2II to $508,000 compared with General Electric’s $630,000 and Pratt and Whitney’s $700,000. Finally the great deal went through. Eastern Airlines, one of America’s largest operators, ordered 50 Lockheeds with the Rolls-Royce engine, and Trans World Airlines announced that it would take 44. The Lockheed Corporation estimated that the potential market by 1980 would be at least 1000 aircraft, which would lift the value of the Rolls-Royce contract to £lOOO million.

When the contract was signed “ The Times ” commented that Rolls-Royce, facing a win-all, lose-all situation, had achieved a triumph, commercially as well as from the point of view of prestige. The British firm had won recognition as one of the world’s leading makers of aero-engines. “And this”, said the newspaper, “is also important, not for the modest thrill “ of pride the fact brings to every Briton, but because “it is a position held entirely on the merits of the “ company’s products ”,