Rootes Group

The Rootes Group or Rootes Motors Limited was a British automobile manufacturer and, separately a major motor distributors and dealers business. Run from London's West End they were respectively based in the Midlands and south of England. In the decade beginning 1928 the Rootes brothers, William and Reginald, made prosperous by their very successful distribution and servicing business, were keen to enter manufacturing for closer control of the products they were selling. One brother has been termed the power unit, the other the steering and braking system,

With the financial support of Prudential Assurance, the two brothers bought some well-known British motor manufacturers, including Hillman, Humber, Singer, Sunbeam, Talbot, Commer and Karrier controlling them through their parent, Rootes' 60-per-cent-owned subsidiary, Humber Limited.

At its height in 1960, Rootes had manufacturing plants in the Midlands at Coventry and Birmingham, in southern England at Acton, Luton and Dunstable, and a brand-new plant in the west of Scotland at Linwood. From its offices in Devonshire House, Piccadilly, in London it controlled exports and international distribution for Rootes and other motor manufacturers and its own local distribution and service operations in London, Kent, Birmingham and Manchester. There were assembly plants in nine countries outside the UK.