New Rolls-Royce EV is by invitation only
Bespoke cars are a super-luxury goldmine - Rolls-Royce finally takes note with Coachbuild Collection
Rolls-Royce has a habit of sounding like tech giant Apple when it has finally decided to adopt a good idea already brought to market by someone else. Ferrari, among others, has long catered to a desire among its super-wealthy clientele for something unique (or as close to it as a volume carmaker can reasonably get); now, with the business case robustly proven by the likes of the Boat Tail and Droptail, Rolls-Royce has announced that it too will expand its bespoke programme to deliver ‘a true coachbuilt motor car’ to anyone lucky (i.e. worthy) enough to have received an invitation.
This, as arch rival Bentley would likely point out, is not the ‘entirely new proposition in super-luxury’ that Rolls-Royce claims it is, yet that hardly makes it a bad idea. Quite the opposite: Goodwood is said to have charged up to £20m for the likes of the Boat Tail (pictured), itself an earlier product of its Coachbuild department. Consequently, the announcement of the Coachbuild Collection, which will essentially do more of the same thing, but with greater consistency and higher turnover, ranks as no-brainer for a firm with a devoted, money-no-object customer base.
“I have had the privilege of meeting clients around the world who seek the very pinnacle in luxury and share an extraordinary passion for Rolls-Royce design,” noted Chris Brownridge, the brand’s chief executive. “It became clear that they wished to see not only what Rolls-Royce would create if left entirely to its own imagination and with the freedom offered by coachbuilding, but they also wanted to witness that journey at every stage. Coachbuild Collection is the result.”
Again, embedding the customer in the development process is hardly novel, nor the idea that they will be treated to ‘singular experiences’ along the way - but that ought not to dull the excitement for Rolls-Royce superfans, especially with the firm offering ‘a wholly unique body style formed, built and handcrafted by Rolls-Royce’s Coachbuild department’. They will not be museum pieces either; each example will be fully homologated, road-legal and ‘created to be driven’.
Quite how much driving actually occurs remains to be seen if the Coachbuild Collection heralds the return of an eight-figure asking price. At any rate, much like the aforementioned Boat Tail, we can expect to see each iteration of a particular body style produced in vanishingly small numbers, that ‘will never be repeated’. The first such model will be revealed next month.
A chance, you might imagine, for Rolls-Royce to double down on its recent admission that the V12 engine - previously marked for termination - would continue to feature beyond 2030. But, no, despite suffering from much the same mixed response to battery power as every other prestige carmaker, Rolls has opted to make its first Coachbuild Collection an EV, meaning it will share much with the Spectre underneath. Except it will be vastly more expensive and sold to people who are almost certainly already Spectre owners. Nice work if you can get it, eh?
I must be ahead of the curve, or Maybe Rolls have forgotten all their cars were hand made once. My car is worth just north of a bout 50p but I'd like to bet it would get a decent crowd of admirers even in the company of this new "boat tail".
If I could fund the 6.75 litres petrol consumption on a round trip further than the paper shop.
They help draw money away from the super wealthy into the pockets of ordinary people.
This is the sort of thing the British car industry is very good at, like Morgan have been doing and others.
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