All Entries Tagged With: "ROLLS-ROYCE"
eBay: La Grande Corniche
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Straightline Auto Group via eBay ::: 1987 Rolls-Royce Corniche II
I’M going to wax a little cantankerous for a moment so bear with me.
The trouble with giving car models simple alphanumeric handles (ex. “R8″ or “760Li”) is that they do little to market the passion behind what you’re driving. They’re very sterile descriptors that only car people truly grasp. Then again, assigning titles like “E320 Elegance” or “Lincoln Town Car Cartier Edition” is nauseatingly kitsch. But give a car a title that draws reference to a beautiful locale – “Ferrari California”, “Chevy Malibu”, or “Rolls-Royce Corniche” – and there we have clear reference to parts that anyone would love to explore from behind the wheel. It’s the simple things sometimes, non?
This lovely 1987 white-on-cream Rolls-Royce Corniche would doubtless do well wafting on its namesake route that winds along the Côte d’Azur. Then again, it might do just as well cruising the boulevards where the stars are bright, day and night.
[eBay]
Design Study: 2012 Rolls-Royce Ghost EWB
Strength: Added length creates sleeker profile. Weakness: the small double moonroof.
Rolls-Royce: Putting The Ecstasy Into The Spirit
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Rankin via Rolls-Royce
SEX sells. You know it. I know it. And it only took Rolls-Royce Motor Cars a hundred years to learn it. The marque once rigidly associated with champagne tailgating parties in the Cotswolds and references to Her Majesty the Queen is letting its hair down and sexing up its image to commemorate 100 years of the Spirit of Ecstasy and appeal to its new client base.
How so, you ask?
Rolls-Royce has commissioned a British photog called Rankin to capture some saucy – but generally tasteful – images of women who through visage or action are meant to remind us of the iconic spirit. Of course, Rolls-Royce isn’t the only super luxury marque to recently mix eroticism with brand promotion via the skills of renowned photographer.
But, hey, better to come late to the party than not to come at all.
Humble? Rolls-Royce Corniche
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via eBay ::: 2001 Rolls-Royce Corniche Convertible
CORNICHE and “humble” aren’t two words typically mated. The irony of the front plate on this ’01 Royce isn’t lost on us. Fact is few postwar rolling statements short of a drophead Cloud or Bentley Azure (on which this generation Corniche is based) make quite the same bold yet classically elegant statement that the driver is a man of A) exquisite taste and B) offshore tax havens. Judging by the scant 2700 miles on this Corniche’s clock, there’s still plenty of statement left to be made by the next owner.
[eBay]
Sand Over Sable Silver Cloud II
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via eBay ::: Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud for sale
AN excerpt on the Silver Cloud II from Anthony Bird and Ian Hallow’s oft cited text The Rolls-Royce Motor Car and Bentley Since 1931:
“Ordinary motor-cars have improved so much since the war that extraordinary ones like Rolls-Royces need to be superb to keep ahead.”
Indeed, it’s hard to consider a more timeless definition of the post-war luxury car than the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. And all these years on, the Silver Cloud II – more than the Silver Cloud III, even – represents that brilliant blend of Edwardian splendor meeting iron-clad engineering.
The clouds still represent the best in so many ways. And this Floridian “sand over sable” restored Cloud IIis one particularly attractive example.
[eBay]
Rolling Prosperously: Red Corniche
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via eBay ::: 1980 Rolls-Royce Corniche
IN China, red marks the color of prosperity. For the Chinese a red Rolls-Royce is a road-going beacon that you’ve made bank in a very big way.
Well, a world away in the land of ten thousand lakes, there’s a 1980 Rolls-Royce Corniche for sale finished in what we can call fire-engine red. Apparently, the topless Royce’s paintwork was redone circa 1990-something according to the seller. And unfortunately the red does extend inside to the contrast piping on the seats (-gag-). But as statements go, three decades on, this Corniche is good fortune on wheels. All it needs now is a license plate with straight-8′s.
[eBay]
Room To Grow: Rolls-Royce Expands With Ghost EWB
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Rolls-Royce Motor Cars ::: Ghost Extended Wheelbase
FIRST, an observation from the Rolls-Royce press office:
It has taken Rolls-Royce Motor Cars just seven years to achieve record sales of 2,711 cars in 2010 since Phantom was first launched in 2003. It took Rolls-Royce Motors, the previous company, more than 70 years to achieve the same figure in a single year.
Plum Choice on Hemmings: 1958 Bentley S1
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via Hemmings ::: 1958 Bentley S1 for sale
HAVING undergone a thorough restoration to the tune of $100,000, this Bentley S1 – the driver’s Rolls-Royce – represents a plum find for the seller’s asking price ($57K o.b.o.). That having been said wouldn’t you just rather have a Cloud and be done with it?
