Now a Rolls Royce

[up1950s]

MTL used to equate Cadillac quality , after time caught flak as quality caught up by other manufactures .

Now you would think manufactures wouldn't jinx themselves with self grandiose advertising statements , but noooooooooo .

[peteski]

Rolls-Royce?! Obviously either it was created by an old geezer, or they are targeting old geezers.
Today's generation doesn't consider that brand as anything they would strive for. Makes like Tesla, Land Rover, Accura, Audi, BMW, or Mercedes would be much more appropriate for a comparison. But then again. it is a steam loco . . . 

[Albert in N]

   Remember the Mehano N scale locomotives that ran like Yugos?

[Point353]

Rolls-Royce?! Obviously either it was created by an old geezer, or they are targeting old geezers.
Today's generation doesn't consider that brand as anything they would strive for. Makes like Tesla, Land Rover, Accura, Audi, BMW, or Mercedes would be much more appropriate for a comparison. But then again. it is a steam loco . . . 

Today's generation might be more likely to associate the Rolls-Royce name with jet aircraft engines than motorcars.
Do you prefer GE or Pratt and Whitney?

[peteski]

Today's generation might be more likely to associate the Rolls-Royce name with jet aircraft engines than motorcars.
Do you prefer GE or Pratt and Whitney?

While what you said makes sense, I have a feeling that most of today's young adults don't even know how airplanes fly, much less what make engines are installed.  This world is really dumbing down.

Is Pratt & Whitney still around?  I thought they were swallowed or merged with another company.

[Englewood]

It's appropriate. Model railroaders are old geezers who know what a Rolls Royce is. There are no youngsters here. By the way, what is a Tesla? 

[peteski]

By the way, what is a Tesla? 

An late-19th Century mad scientist who dabbled in high-frequency, high-voltage experiments.   

[Dave Schneider]

The Rolls-Royce car brand was sold to BMW in 2011. Funny story about this told to be by a R-R jet turbine engineer colleague. Apparently, BMW bought the company but neglected to actually buy the Trademark. So they had to go back and pay Rolls a significant amount to be able to have the name. I suspect their were some lawyers that lost their jobs over this one.

Best wishes,
Dave

[garethashenden]

While what you said makes sense, I have a feeling that most of today's young adults don't even know how airplanes fly, much less what make engines are installed.  This world is really dumbing down.

Is Pratt & Whitney still around?  I thought they were swallowed or merged with another company.

They're owned by United Technology, but they still make engines using the Pratt & Whitney name.

[thomasjmdavis]

No doubt what they really want to say is that it performs like a Kato.

"Rolls Royce" tells me it will be priced such that only those who can afford to keep 2 chauffeurs and a mechanic on staff can afford one.  Given that the MSRP for is in the range of BLI M1s, MRC is well on their way to achieving that goal, although it does sell for a substantial discount in real life.

On the other hand, at least MRC is producing a small steam engine in N scale that does not look like a veteran of the Civil War.

[nickelplate759]

They're owned by United Technology, but they still make engines using the Pratt & Whitney name.

Pratt & Whitney hasn't been an independent company in many, many years.  It became part of United Aircraft (since renamed to United Technologies) in the 1920s.

By the way, the UA TurboTrain (thanks again Rapido for making this in N-Scale!) had P&W ST6 turbines.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Rolls-Royce?! Obviously either it was created by an old geezer, or they are targeting old geezers.
Today's generation doesn't consider that brand as anything they would strive for. Makes like Tesla, Land Rover, Accura, Audi, BMW, or Mercedes would be much more appropriate for a comparison. But then again. it is a steam loco . . . 

Let's leave Tesla and Range Rover out of the list. Their reliability is - problematic - to put it mildly.

[BOK]

I received one of these fine little 2-6-0 s, with DCC/Sound, for Christmas and it runs like a swiss. watch. Reliable ,smooth runner and great value for the price.

Barry

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The Rolls-Royce car brand was sold to BMW in 2011. Funny story about this told to be by a R-R jet turbine engineer colleague. Apparently, BMW bought the company but neglected to actually buy the Trademark. So they had to go back and pay Rolls a significant amount to be able to have the name. I suspect their were some lawyers that lost their jobs over this one.

Best wishes,
Dave

The story was even more twisted than that. Around 1998 or so, VW group was on a buying spree and wanted to add RR to the lineup. They bought RR/Bentley including the tooling, factories and employees. VW had no idea at the time that Bentley Motor Car had only licensed the name Rolls Royce from the jet engine maker.

After VW secured the deal, a sale clause allowed RR Engine to take control of the brand name, to which they then licensed to BMW group. This was an insane deal for BMW as they could produce a new ultra lux car with no legacy costs (older tooling, pensions, etc.). BMW sat on the name until VW relented and sold off the RR intellectual property to BMW at a huge loss.

This is why VW pushed the Bentley name so hard. But the total misadventure cost VW group billions.

Ironically, this almost happened to another BMW holding. Back in the 1990's, BMW sold off Range Rover to Ford, and spun off MG-Rover to a separate company with Range Rover retaining the ownership of the Rover name. Around 2006, a Chinese company bought MG-Rover, it's tooling, factories and legacy costs after bankruptcy with the intent to sell MG cars as a budget brand and Rover as a luxury marquee in one turn key operation.

Range Rover disallowed the use of the name Rover, and the Chinese company was left with a lot of tooling without a name. They eventually settled in the Chinese phonetic pronunciation of Rover: Roewe (most Asiatic languages do not have a "v" consonant).

Cars: my other great love.

[Cajonpassfan]

I received one of these fine little 2-6-0 s, with DCC/Sound, for Christmas and it runs like a swiss. watch. Reliable ,smooth runner and great value for the price.

Barry

Same experience here. A great little loco for the money. And this little loco runs smoothly through trackwork the Athearn Challenger stalls on. And pulls almost as much. Go figure.

So I don't really care what their advertising people dream up, as long as their engineers and designers know their stuff. And they obviously do....
I wish they'd do more steam!
Otto K.