020 8400 4829Rolls-Royce Phantom Design
Rolls-Royce Design
The task of designing any new Rolls-Royce is huge. The premise is to try and maintain the Rolls-Royce DNA, to keep the spirit of ecstasy alive and the Rolls-Royce family uniqueness. You can see various features in older models inherent in their modern designs. Each design starts life as the EX’ Experimental car, initially sketched out on pencil and paper. With computer technology, life sized clay models are eventually created, so the designers can witness the classic finished design shapes first hand.
Goodwood Factory
Rolls-Royce Motorcars spiritual home, as they call it themselves, is located in Goodwood on a historic estate famous for motor sport. Their ecologically sensitive and purpose built headquarters are a real flagship for Rolls-Royce. From the outside, the building has a stunning glass mile, through which you get the tantalising view of the assembly line with natural light pouring in from the ceiling. When I entered the factory I got a strong sense of professionalism throughout and also community. It seemed like I was in one big Rolls-Royce club, where everybody was heading towards the single goal of manufacturing the perfect automobile.
Manufacture
The state of the art assembly line is where each Rolls-Royce is hand built piece by piece. It was a pleasure to watch the shell of the car being added to and it gave me a sense of putting a toy car together when I was a boy. The body shell takes five coats of the finest paint and lacquer and seven days to obtain a flawless finish. The finest of sandpaper is used by hand painstakingly smoothed for a first class finish. The wood shop is home to the most beautiful veneer created from a single tree. As each Phantom is made to order, a piece of veneer is kept at the factory in case of damage, so a replacement piece with identical grain can be fitted to your vehicle. The leather shop too has its own uniqueness. It houses top quality hides and 200 pieces are gathered for a single vehicle using eleven hides. The Bulls the hide comes from are kept in a field in Germany without any barbed wire fencing so that there are no tags or imperfections. The hides are then hand stitched with the whole process taking two weeks. Before the Rolls-Royce can finally leave the assembly line exhaustive testing and quality control are carried out culminating in a final test drive. For me, the Rolls-Royce marque of excellence makes their range of cars simply the best in the world.
