NEW ROLLS ‘MORE BRITISH THAN THE CAR ITSELF’
The brand new BMW-designed Rolls-Royce isn’t just about a clean sheet engineering programme and a purpose built factory in Sussex, we can exclusively reveal today. As part of a comprehensive plan to make the reborn Roller a unique automotive landmark, all BMW staff involved in the project have taken part in an extensive training scheme to make them as traditionally British as possible. ‘That’s right old boy,’ agreed spokesman Hans ‘Bunty’ Weismann-Smythe. ‘Self conscious use of the words ‘motor car’ in press releases is just the start, dontcha know. Now those blasted Jerries at Volkswagen have been shown what’s what we’re free to get this bally crate off the ground and we’ll be doing it in a way that’s as dashed British as Her Majesty the Queen or eggs, bacon and knockwurst. Erm, sausages. I meant sausages…’
Under the radical new reinvention programme all Project Rolls-Royce staff have been forced to watch up to 40 hours of ‘talkies’ from the Ealing Studios using the very latest in cinematic projection devices. BMW bosses have also offered financial incentives to any employee who grows a large moustache and adopts an appropriate nickname which can be used during company time. ‘Yes, that’s been jolly successful,’ Weismann-Smythe crowed. ‘I was just saying to Ginger and Corky, this bally moustache caper has been quite a wheeze. I haven’t had so much fun since that time at school when we stole matron’s bloomers and hoisted them up the flagpole. Lawks! Blimey! What ho! Etcetera.’
In line with this innovative stab at Britishness the new Rolls-Royce base in Goodwood has been fitted with extensive oak panelling, roaring log fires and stirring portraits of Churchill, Gladstone and Higgins out of Magnum P.I.
‘It’s all so bally British,’ Weismann-Smythe continued. ‘You know it makes one want to sing Land of Hope and Glory… which of course we do every day, just before Pater says Grace at suppertime.’
Sniff Petrol tried to point out that Weismann-Smythe was actually born in Haimhausen near Munich but he had inexplicably gone off to get a large, four engined propeller plane with which to bomb himself.
