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Thread Number: 86742
/ Tag: Vintage Automatic Washers
Origin of Rolls Rapide |
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| Post# 1113177 3/29/2021 at 22:22 (1,115 days old) by seedub (South Texas Hill Country) | ||
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Post# 1113180 , Reply# 1 3/29/2021 at 22:50 (1,115 days old) by RP2813  (Sannazay) |
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Post# 1113182 , Reply# 2 3/29/2021 at 23:07 (1,115 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Well, no one asked me, but never the less...
Not *that* Rolls (as in Royce), but this one.... Rolls Razor en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls_Razo... A brilliant man named John Bloom got the idea of selling washing machines in UK at lower prices than main brands. He did this by starting out with door to door and other direct sales. At first his machines were imports from the Netherlands, but Mr. Bloom soon realized could keep more of profits for himself by cutting out the middle man. So he searched around UK for a manufacturer. Who better to make washing machines than a company (Rolls Razor) who already was making things from steel. "Rolls" from Rolls Razor and "Rapide" is French for "fast". The rest as they say is history. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bloom...(businessman)#Washing_machines | ||
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Post# 1113185 , Reply# 3 3/29/2021 at 23:27 (1,115 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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How the mighty fell
As you would well imagine Mr. John Bloom's selling tactics (direct sales, and later buy one get another free or at discount) ticked off major appliance manufactures in UK like Hotpoint. What ensued were at least two (IIRC) washing machine wars with majors going after Rolls by cutting their prices, boxing that company into a corner.
On top of second washing machine war Hotpoint and I believe others began legal proceedings against Rolls for selling tactics. To put this all in perspective one must remember state of British economy in post war years. While America was going through a post war boom, GB had not only a war to pay for, but an economy to rebuild as well. Export or die was the the mantra of 1950's through well into 1970's GB. Flip side of this was to limit imports which of course cause trade imbalances. Washing machines were expensive for a host of reasons, one of them were measures designed to limit imports from elsewhere in world. As we've discussed here in group this explains why British housewives in post war years were lumbered largely with semi-automatic twin tub type washers, or wringers. Twin tub washers are rather simple machines, and easily built on large scale production. So you can see how Mr. John Bloom managed to nab a fairly decent market share for what his products. Rolls (later Rolls-Colston) with factory direct pricing and also offering easy payment/credit terms allowed more families to afford a washing machine than otherwise. | ||
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Post# 1113192 , Reply# 4 3/30/2021 at 04:14 (1,115 days old) by chestermikeuk (Rainhill *Home of the RailwayTrials* Merseyside,UK) |
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Rolls Royce v Rolls Rapide
"Was the company in any way associated with the Rolls-Royce company that manufactures cars and airplane engines; or, is the name entirely coincidental? "
Hello Chris, absolutely not, Both complete extremes of the same name, you could smelt down a whole twintub and still not have the metal quality of a wheel hub nut !! Saying that with all the information above he did revolutionise the washer industry here by supplying a cheap twintub afforded by the masses but alas even volume of sales didnt stop him going bust spectacularly. Heres an article from the UK Twintub thread posted by Austin. CLICK HERE TO GO TO chestermikeuk's LINK
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Post# 1113193 , Reply# 5 3/30/2021 at 04:25 (1,115 days old) by chestermikeuk (Rainhill *Home of the RailwayTrials* Merseyside,UK) |
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Rolls - John Bloom
page 2...
Do any of you know of the 1520AD restaurants he owned ? CLICK HERE TO GO TO chestermikeuk's LINK
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Post# 1113267 , Reply# 7 3/30/2021 at 21:48 (1,114 days old) by RP2813 (Sannazay) |
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In Santa Cruz, California there was once a hippie dippy restaurant called McDharma's, just a couple of blocks from a beach shack that Dave and I used to rent super cheap from a friend of a friend for weekend getaways. McDharma's thrived for many years until 1986 when an evil giant burger chain sued them. They had to drop the "Mc" or stop operating, because the evil giant burger chain holds exclusive rights to the "Mc" mark for anything restaurant-related. So they chose to keep operating as (Mc)"Dharma's" since they couldn't afford the legal battle and fortunately, they are still going strong in a bigger, better located space on a busy boulevard just down the road from their antagonist, and long ago dropped the "Mc" entirely.
Considering the restaurant's original name, it was obvious that they weren't in any competition with a global chain that specialized in serving sacred cow, but the giant evil burger chain worth $McBillions is apparently quite an insecure entity. CLICK HERE TO GO TO RP2813's LINK | ||
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