IT WAS the last one to come off the production line – and workers gathered round to mark the occasion.

Workers at the Pressed Steel factory at Cowley had been producing bodies for the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and production was coming to an end.

Oxford Mail:

  • Stan White, in dark overalls, with his arms folded, on the left, with the last body for the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow

The picture, which is thought to date from about 1967, comes from Stan White, of Cherwell Avenue, Kidlington, who is in dark overalls, with his arms folded, on the left.

Pressed Steel had become involved with Rolls-Royce production in 1949, making the first one-piece steel bodied Rolls.

Co-operation between the two companies continued, largely unheralded and unsung, for more than 30 years.

Apart from the Silver Shadow, workers also produced bodies for the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud and the Silver Spirit.

In later years, the work was done in a relatively small building on a corner of the Pressed Steel site by the Horspath Road roundabout.

In the late 1970s, the workshop was modernised and re-equipped for Rolls’ body shells to be produced at the rate of 65 a week.

The Rolls-Royce bodies were among thousands produced at Pressed Steel for various motor manufacturers after the factory opened in 1926.

William Morris, creator of the Cowley car empire, saw the advantages that an all-steel car body would have over the composite metal and wood types on his early models.

The Edward G Budd company in Philadelphia was developing the techniques of pressing and welding sheet steel.

Morris persuaded the American company to join forces with him and establish a plant next door to his Morris Motors’ factory.

The neighbouring factories complemented each other, one producing the car bodies and chassis and the other completing the vehicles.

It was clear early on, however, that Pressed Steel would not survive if it worked solely on Morris cars.

Other car manufacturers were reluctant to place orders because of William Morris’s interest in the company. So Morris sold his shares, enabling Pressed Steel to win contracts from other companies such as Austin, Jaguar, Rover, Standard and Rolls-Royce. It also set up a subsidiary, Prestcold, to make refrigerators.

Pressed Steel remained independent until 1966 when it returned to the same fold as its old partner, Morris Motors, under the umbrella of the British Motor Corporation. The two plants were connected by an enclosed bridge with a conveyor carrying the cars high above the Oxford Eastern Bypass.

Do you recognise yourself or anyone else in the picture? Write and let me know.