They plan to offer more than £450m ($730m) to buy Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and promise to invest a further £350m in the Crewe factory.

If they succeed to firm up their offer, they will be able to outbid both Volkswagen and BMW, who are in the race to buy the British luxury car maker.

Flying for Britain?

The new bid is being led by Michael Shrimpton, a Bentley-driving barrister, who says he has the backing of a group of millionaires from Britain and North America.

The Rolls fans call themselves Crewe Motors, after the Rolls and Bentley factory.

Mr Shrimpthon said they had been "working on the bid this weekend. Our intention is to outbid Volkswagen and we hope to be launching a bid before Friday."

On Friday, shareholders of Vickers, the current owner of Rolls-Royce, meet for an extraordinary general meeting in London to decide which bid to accept.

When Vickers put the company up for sale last autumn, the German car maker BMW seemed to be the natural partner as it was already providing the engines for the new Rolls-Royce models.

BMW offered £340m and promised to invest up to £1bn, doubling the company's workforce and tripling production.

Shortly afterwards Germany's largest car maker, Volkswagen, entered the fray.

At first the board of Vickers recommended that its shareholders should sell Rolls-Royce to BMW, but it was later persuaded to support the Volkswagen bid, after the Wolfsburg-based company raised its offer to £430m.

BMW has refused to enter a bidding war and has threatened to withdraw all technical support if Rolls-Royce is sold to a competitor.

If Crewe Motors manage to put their offer together, Vickers shareholders can expect yet another escalation in the bidding war.

BMW is unlikely to put in another offer, but Volkswagen might be prepared to trump Crewe Motors.

Mr Shrimpton is appealing to appeal to the patriotic feelings of Vickers' shareholders.

He says Rolls-Royce is part of Britain's "national prestige", and that the flying lady, the statue on the hoods of all Rolls Royce cars, "carries the good name of this country."