Like many famous automotive industry figures, William Rootes (senior) had an early association with bicycles. In the late 1800s he set up a general engineering business in his Kentish home town, increasingly involved with the bicycle boom. A lover of all things mechanical, pedal-powered two wheelers inevitably gave way to internal combustion four wheelers. In 1895, Rootes attended a motor show held in Tunbridge Wells and duly bought one of the new-fangled motorised contraptions.
Sons Billy and Reggie, born 1894 and 1896, were also keen to get out on the road, and in 1905 ‘borrowed’ Pater’s motor, only to crash it – not an auspicious start. Leaving school in 1909, Billy was taken on by Singer as an apprentice, but in 1913 he left to set up in the car…