Making A Legend takes in a broad sweep of the company's history, featuring cars from the marque's very earliest days in the 1900s, right up to new Ghost launched in 2020.
It also examines how a Rolls-Royce is designed, engineered and made.
Chapters include Design and Customisation, Paint and Finish, Chassis Assembly, Woodwork, Leather and Testing; there is also an entire section on the "Spirit of Ecstasy", the figurine that sits atop the bonnet of Rolls-Royce cars for over 100 years.
Featuring more than 300 illustrated pages, the hardback is the combined work of Emmy-winning automotive journalist Harvey Briggs, novelist Simon Van Booy and photographer Mariano Vilarós.
They were given behind-the-scenes access to Rolls-Royce's facilities and people over several months before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
Briggs, who grew up in America's Motor City, Detroit, and has reviewed every new Rolls-Royce model since Wraith in 2013, recalls being surprised at how much work is still performed by hand, even in the assembly process.
"The first time I visited Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, I was in awe of the creativity and skill of the people who design and build these cars. I knew I had to tell those stories," Briggs said.
Van Booy said, "The friendly perfectionism for craft, displayed by everyone we interviewed and Mariano photographed, was inspiring to the point where we knew the book had to be something rare and marvelous and functional – rather like a Rolls-Royce itself."
Briggs
Van Booy
Organised by Unesco, World Book and Copyright Day celebrates the role of books and reading as a link between the past and the future, the bridge across generations and cultures.
The date, April 23, is symbolic in world literature, marking the deaths of playwright and poet William Shakespeare; the creator of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes and the early Peruvian writer, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
Making A Legend is published by ACC Art Books, and is now available from all good retailers and online.
