Rootes Group

William Edward Rootes, 1st Baron Rootes GBE (17 August 1894 – 12 December 1964) was a British motor manufacturer. He opened his first car sales agency in 1913, leading to the global Rootes Group. During the Second World War he supervised the volume manufacture of aircraft and engines, as well as the supply of military motor vehicles and armoured fighting vehicles. He was knighted in 1942 for these services and for organising the reconstruction of bomb-damaged Coventry after its saturation bombing by the Luftwaffe on 14–15 November 1940. In the 1950s, he became a leader of Britain's export drive, and chaired a committee to found the University of Warwick with a vision of academic links with industry.

Ian Garrad was the United States West Coast sales manager for Rootes Group, parent company of Sunbeam. He was instrumental in the design and eventual production of the Sunbeam Tiger.

Henry Edward Merritt MBE (20 May 1899 – 28 March 1974) was a British mechanical engineer who invented the Merritt–Brown triple differential tank transmission that provided greater manoeuvrability to a generation of British tanks, starting with the Churchill in 1939 and continuing into the 1980s. It allowed a tracked vehicle to change direction while on the move with less loss of power than under other steering systems, and to perform a neutral turn on the spot by rotating its tracks in opposite directions. Merritt's invention suited the faster pace of tank warfare of the Second World War, which contrasted with the more static trench warfare of the First World War, for which earlier generations of British tanks had been optimised.

Humber Limited was a British manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles, and cars, incorporated and listed on the stock exchange in 1887. It took the name "Humber & Co Limited" because of the high reputation of the products of one of the constituent businesses that had belonged to Thomas Humber. A financial reconstruction in 1899 transferred its business to Humber Limited.

Sunbeam-Talbot Limited was a British motor manufacturing business. It built upmarket sports-saloon versions under the parenthood of Rootes Group cars from 1938 to 1954. Its predecessor Clément-Talbot Limited had made Talbot automobiles from 1902 to 1935.

Linwood (Scots: Linwuid) is a town in Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland, 14 miles (23 kilometres) west of Glasgow. It is about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.5 kilometres) northeast of Johnstone and west of Paisley close to the Black Cart Water and the A737 road.

STD Motors, formerly Darracq & Company, was a French manufacturer of motor vehicles and aero engines based in Suresnes near Paris. The French enterprise, known at first as A. Darracq et Cie, was founded in 1896 by Alexandre Darracq after he sold his Gladiator Bicycle business. In 1903 Darracq sold the business to A Darracq and Company Limited of England, taking a substantial shareholding himself.

Hillman was a British automobile marque created by the Hillman-Coatalen Company, founded in 1907, renamed the Hillman Motor Car Company in 1910. The company was based in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, near Coventry, England. Before 1907 the company had built bicycles. Newly under the control of the Rootes brothers, the Hillman company was acquired by Humber in 1928. Hillman was used as the small car marque of Humber Limited from 1931, but until 1937 Hillman did continue to sell large cars. The Rootes brothers reached a sixty per cent holding of Humber in 1932 which they retained until 1967, when Chrysler bought Rootes and bought out the other forty per cent of shareholders in Humber. The marque continued to be used under Chrysler until 1976.

Tilling-Stevens was a British manufacturer of buses and other commercial vehicles, based in Maidstone, Kent. Originally established in 1897, it became a specialist in petrol-electric vehicles. It continued as an independent manufacturer until 1950, when it was acquired by the Rootes Group.

The Rootes Group was a British automobile manufacturer and, separately, a major motor distributors and dealers business. From headquarters in the West End of London, the manufacturer was based in the Midlands and the distribution and dealers business in the south of England. In the decade beginning 1928 the Rootes brothers, William and Reginald, made prosperous by their very successful distribution and servicing business, were keen to enter manufacturing for closer control of the products they were selling.