Killing a bit of time on the iPad, my random searches took me to a web site with the following images of a Rolls Royce Wraith 2 door for sale in the UK. Looking at this car, I can't help but think that BMW's 'saviour' of the iconic British automotive brand was anything but.

Whilst the new RR cars embody the supposedly best automotive technology the BMW group has to offer, even if I had the cash, there is no way I could ever buy, drive or be seen in any contemporary car from Rolls Royce. They are utterly devoid of any class or taste, and whilst Henry Royce and Charles Rolls may appreciate some of the engineering, I imagine they are turning in their respective graves at the current RR brand positioning and target customer.

I think it would have been better to allow the Rolls Royce car brand to die a dignified death.








The 'good old days'...

 

China and the Far East are their big markets, record sales year after year. They'll make what new money wants to buy.

Last time I was at Bentley, their line had never been busier with the significant majority of cars going east too.

(FWIW I agree, but money talks nowadays).

 

Money doesn't equal style.
Or taste.

 

ah, but the hide for the leather is only from bulls (no stretch marks) and they're kept in the alps where there are no barbed wire fences to knick their skin on.... and the coach-lines are hand-applied by naked virgins using only brushes made from their own hair.

Actually, I do know the pinstripes are done by only one man, but hopefully you get my point that there's only so much over-hyping that can be done for a product before it becomes boring. But hey, if you want to be able to say that your starlight roof liner has over 1300 hand-crafted fibre-optic LEDs then you might be the type to buy a new Rolls

 

or buy a convertible and drive roof down for the real deal. And e added bonus of seeing the spaceships....

 

There was an old boy (Mr Hiddlestone) who lived across from the folks and who drove one of those (or it may have been the Bentley version). I always remember the time when I was 6 or 7 and he gave me a lift up to the pillar box. I'm struggling to think of any other occasion when I've been in a Roller or Bentley ...

Beautiful cars though ...

 

It would be hard to imagine these characters in a contemporary Rolls Royce...

 

Check out the 'black editions' with their purple upholstery. I dunno if that's racist, or not.

I've never quite understood the appeal of a Rolls-Royce, personally. But then I'm not a 0.001%er.

The Silver Shadow always reminded me of an elephant. Detested the look of the things, even as a kid. Though a couple of the coupes by MPW or James Young seemed a little less self-important & a bit more stylish. And yes, the 1960s class-structure perhaps made them less derisory, somehow.

Then again, I find the crassness of most tier-one marques a bit embarrassing these days, be it Ferrari, Lamborghini or whoever. Somehow, the Acuras & McLs (with less 'heritage', if you will) don't seem as bad, somehow.

 

looks like a maloo in profile.. ew.

I agree, a dignified death would be more fitting, however where £££ is involved, the brand name sells as luxury and this is what the new money in the world wants.

There are not enough Earls and the likes left to buy such cars anymore, so footballers it is.

£ is money £ to a shareholder, wherever it comes from... (offshore I expect)

 

Ho-leee Sheee-it...








I would prefer a Dunham Coach Corvoradao...