Prestcold was a British refrigerator manufacturer, established by the Pressed Steel Co. Ltd of Oxford in 1934. It manufactured both domestic and commercial refrigeration. Through its history, it was closely related to automotive manufacturing, particularly that of Morris Motors and successor British Leyland. Fridges were originally produced alongside car bodies at the pressed steel facility built for Morris, adjacent to the Morris factory. Formation and early years The Pressed Steel Co. Ltd was a joint venture formed in 1926 between William Morris of Morris Motors, the American Budd Company and J. Henry Schröder & Co. bank. It was formed primarily to make car bodies for Morris' car marques, and the factory was adjacent to the Morris works at Cowley. In 1930, disagreements between Morris and Budd led to court action, and Pressed Steel gained a measure of independence, producing for manufacturers other than Morris. Following this, in 1935, the company became fully independent. Initial production of refrigerators was conducted in 1933 at the Cowley plant (now the Plant Oxford site, manufacturing Mini cars for BMW). In 1936, a wholly owned subsidiary, Refrigeration (Birmingham) Ltd was formed to manufacture fridges. The company engaged in innovative advertising strategies, including the creation of over 100,000 miniature fridge-shaped money boxes to emphasise how their product could save the consumer money. The Prestcold Packaway refrigerator won the inaugural Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design (later the Prince Philip Designers Prize) in 1959. The model was successful, with a number of design elements including a small exterior dimension compared to its internal capacity, and being sized with both British Standard and European Free Trade Area requirements in mind. By 1961, the company had over 100 employees, and had opened a brand new £5M factory at Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea, The factory covered and took just a year to build, with many of the workers being relocated by the company from Cowley. Washing machines and leaving the domestic market In the early 1960s, John Bloom’s Rolls Razor company sub-contracted Prestcold to manufacture his low price Rolls Rapide washing machines. As part of an extensive deal, which involved Rolls becoming a distributor of Prestcold fridges, and joint branding of Rolls-Prestcold. This was initially successful, but when Rolls went into administration in 1964, Prestcold was owed $1.2m, and the debt caused Prestcold to withdraw completely from the domestic appliance market, focusing on the commercial market instead. As a result