HJ Mulliner & Co.

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HJ Mulliner & Co.
legal form Limited Company
founding 1900
resolution 1961
Reason for dissolution Merger with Park Ward
Seat London , UK
Branch Body shop

HJ Mulliner & Co. was a British manufacturer of automobile bodies which produced exclusive individual bodies and small series for luxury vehicles in the first half of the 20th century. HJ Mulliner was taken over in 1959 by Rolls-Royce , one of its most important business partners until then, and two years later it was merged with the body manufacturer Park Ward , which was also part of Rolls-Royce ; the new company was called Mulliner Park Ward . “Mulliner” still exists as a label at Bentley to this day, even if the construction of special bodies was discontinued in 1967.

Family relationships

At times, four different bodybuilders in the UK used the Mulliner name. There were family ties on the part of the owner or founder; However, business connections did not result from this. All Mulliner operations were formally and organizationally independent.

  • Common origins were the Northampton-based Arthur Mulliner (initially: Mulliners of Northampton), which dates back to 1760.
  • At the beginning of the 19th century, a descendant of the founder established an independent business in Leamington Spa aimed at the affluent clientele of this health resort, which was relocated to Birmingham in 1896 and renamed Mulliners or Mulliners of Birmingham.
  • The coach manufacturer AG Mulliner had also been based in Liverpool since 1854 .
  • In 1882 Arthur Mulliner from Northampton and AG Mulliner from Liverpool opened a joint showroom in the affluent London district of Mayfair , which they jointly called Mulliner (London) Ltd. led. This London company was taken over by Henry Jervis Mulliner , and in 1900 it became HJ Mulliner & Co.

Company history

Beginnings in Mayfair

De Dion-Bouton 3.5 CV Double Phaeton with body by HJ Mulliner (1900)

Unlike the other companies of the Mulliner family, HJ Mulliner & Co. did not start out as a carriage manufacturer, but produced automobile bodies from the start. It aimed directly at the customers of the British upper class and regularly bodyed the most expensive chassis from Daimler and - from 1904 - Rolls-Royce . Charles Rolls, for example, had his private Silver Ghost fitted with a body by HJ Mulliner. The superstructures from HJ Mulliner were soon so in demand that the factories built in Mayfair only five years later were no longer sufficient to meet demand. In 1906, HJ Mulliner & Co. moved into new production facilities in the London borough of Chiswick .

Takeover by Croall & Son

Bentley 8-liter sedan with body by HJ Mulliner (1930)

In 1908, Henry Jervis Mulliner sold the company to the established bodywork manufacturer John Croall & Son , who left it to exist alongside his own business and continued under the previous name. For the next 15 years it was headed by Frank Piesse, Henry Jervis Mulliner's brother-in-law. After the First World War, HJ Mulliner achieved a reputation that corresponded to that of its 100 and 200 year old competitors Hooper and Barker ; Observers considered HJ Mulliner to be at least equivalent in terms of style, technique and quality of craftsmanship. The bodies based on the Weymann patent reached a particularly high level .

In the 1920s, a close relationship developed with Bentley - HJ Mulliner produced more than 240 bodies for Bentley chassis in that decade - which expanded to include Rolls-Royce from 1931. In the 1930s, HJ Mulliner almost exclusively bodyed chassis from Rolls-Royce and Bentley; only individual bodies were made for Daimler, Humber and Lagonda at the customer's request . During the Second World War, the production of civilian bodies came to a standstill.

Post-war period: Bentley and Rolls-Royce

One of the most famous vehicles with a body by HJ Mulliner: Bentley R-Type Continental (1955)

After the end of the war, HJ Mulliner was one of the few body manufacturers who resumed production and remained true to their previous segment. HJ Mulliner continued to focus on Rolls-Royce and Bentley. However, since both companies now offered factory-made standard bodies for their Silver Dawn and R-Type models , the production of individual bodies fell continuously in the 1950s. The company received another large order in connection with Bentley's sporty R-Type Continental project , for which HJ Mulliner manufactured the standard body known as the Mulliner Sports Saloon . 190 units of this hatchback coupé had been produced by 1955 and today it is one of the most sought-after British classics of the post-war period. HJ Mulliner built over 200 bodies for the successor models S1 Continental and S2 Continental .

Takeover by Rolls-Royce

In the late 1950s, HJ Mulliner was one of the last independent bodybuilders in Great Britain; most of the competition had been taken over by a major automaker over the decade. In July 1959, Rolls-Royce bought HJ Mulliner for £ 250,000 because the company needed additional capacity to build the standard bodies of the successful Silver Cloud and S-Type models . After Rolls-Royce had taken over Mulliner's competitor Park Ward in 1939, the group now owned two body construction companies. In 1961, Rolls-Royce merged the two companies and renamed them Mulliner Park Ward.

Mulliner at Bentley

When the brands Rolls-Royce and Bentley were separated in the course of the takeovers by BMW and Volkswagen in 1998, the brand names Park Ward and Mulliner were also split up. While the name Park Ward went to BMW and was subsequently used for an extended version of the Silver Seraph , Volkswagen took over the HJ Mulliner brand for Bentley. Bentley now has a special department called Mulliner, in which the standard vehicles can be individualized according to customer requirements.

gallery

literature

  • Nick Walker: A – Z of British Coachbuilders 1919–1960 . Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 .
  • Jonathan Wood: Coachbuilding - The hand-crafted car body Shire Publications Ltd (2008); ISBN 978-0-7478-0688-2
  • David Culshaw and Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975 , Veloce Publishing PLC, Dorchester (1997), ISBN 1-874105-93-6
  • Jonathan Wood: The British Motor Industry Shire Publications Ltd (2010); ISBN 0-7478-0768-X , ISBN 978-0-7478-0768-1
  • RM Clarke (Editor): Armstrong-Siddeley Gold Portfolio 1945-1960 ; Brooklands Book Distribution Ltd., Cobham, Surrey (UK), ISBN 1-85520-069-4
  • Lawrence Dalton: Those Elegant Rolls Royce ; Revised edition (1978), Dalton-Watson Ltd., Publishers, London, England
  • Lawrence Dalton: Rolls Royce - The Elegance Continues ; Dalton-Watson Ltd., Publishers, London, England, ISBN 0-901564-05-2

Web links

Commons : HJ Mulliner & Co.  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. Nick Walker: A – Z of British Coachbuilders 1919–1960 . Herridge & Sons, Shebbear 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 150.
  2. a b History of HJ Mulliner & Co. on the website www.rrab.com (accessed on May 25, 2017).
  3. Nick Walker: A – Z of British Coachbuilders 1919–1960 . Herridge & Sons, Shebbear 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 149.
  4. Mike Goodbun, Mark Fagelson: Choice of the Connoisseurs . Model history of the R-Type and S-Type Continentals. In: Thoroughbred & Classic Cars, issue 12/2010, p. 44 ff.
  5. Overview on the website www.bentleymotors.com (accessed on May 26, 2017).