Mulliner Park Ward
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Mulliner Park Ward was a coachbuilder based in London UK. The company produced Rolls-Royce Motor cars including the Rolls-Royce Phantom and the Rolls-Royce Corniche. The company closed in 1991.
[edit] History
Henry Jervis Mulliner established a coachbuilding business in Brook Street, Mayfair, London, an affluent area not far from Conduit Street, Rolls-Royce's first showroom.
The company produced car bodies for several car manufacturers and earned a reputation for quality, even producing for Charles Stewart Rolls a modified two seater car with room for a hot air balloon to be stowed.
In 1919 the company Park and Ward was formed in Willesden, London, and a year later started producing bodies for the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. Henry Royce was impressed with the quality of the work of Park Ward, which led to a number of orders, and by the early 1930s most of their work was from Rolls. Finally in 1939 the company was taken over by Rolls-Royce.
After the war the two companies continued to produce fine quality bodies, however in 1959 after some financial difficulties HJ Mulliner was also taken over by Rolls-Royce. The new division of Rolls-Royce Mulliner Park Ward was created and at its peak employed 750 workers. The premises were located at Hythe Road, Willesden, London. Over its 100-year history the company created countless classic designs, and after its closure in 1991 the name Mulliner Park Ward remained as a division within Rolls-Royce until the sale and split-up of Rolls-Royce and Bentley, at which point it became a division of Bentley Motors.