The engine would also have to be mounted under the car to give the appearance of a town brougham and so needed to be very shallow.

To compete with early electric cars, the engine was a completely new design with smoothness and quietness as top priorities, with power a secondary consideration.

[1] Two body styles were proposed, a Landaulet par Excellence to attack the town electric market and the Legalimit.

[1] Although the car cannot be judged a success, lessons were learned from the engine design that were later used on the six-cylinder models which helped establish the Rolls-Royce name.

[5] Though none survive, Rolls-Royce at least emerges as the first to conceive of a passenger car designed from the outset as a V-8.