There is something about the Rolls-Royce that makes one thing of a different time, when just riding around in one of these was a sign of prestige and power and it has made itself a brand that demands respect. Rolls-Royce had recently unveiled the beautiful-looking Dawn, which clearly heralds back to a different time, and yet this car is still made for this era with a lot of contemporary features, at a very high price.
According to Overdrive, Rolls-Royce decided to unveil its latest soft-top convertible, the Dawn, before the Frankfurt Motor Show. The name is related to the 1952 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn, a car that made quite a name for itself in the post-war era. The official press release says that the Dawn is "the sexiest Rolls-Royce ever built", and there are several reasons for that.
Fortune highlights the Dawn's basic features including a fabric roof (not a hardtop) that can silently retract in 22 seconds, Rolls-Royce's Bespoke Audio with 16 individually tuned speakers, not to mention a way for the driver to control the car with vocal commands. There is also a heads-up display and dynamic cruise control, not to mention a slimmed-down design.
As far as what is under the hood, or in the case of the Rolls-Royce, the grill, there is a trademark 6.6-liter V-12 good for 563 horsepower, which is good enough for taking this car from 0 to 62 in 4.9 seconds.
For those interested in purchasing this, there is some bad news. The Dawn pre-orders have already been filled, and deliveries won't start until next year, according to The Verge. For others interested in purchasing this car later, here's something that might stop you: the car costs $300,000.
This price really should come as no surprise. When it comes to the Rolls-Royce, you are not buying the car, but the name itself, a name that has become synonymous with class, luxury, and riches. As said on BBC: "you don't just shut the rear-hinged door on one of these cars, you walk it to the chassis".
As the company says: "we're not just creating cars at Rolls-Royce, we're designing experiences. When you arrive somewhere, we want you to feel that you've experienced something truly special. It used to be that you'd get an idea of what it was like to be Cary Grant or Grace Kelly. The people and reference points might be different now, but we remain curators of that kind of experience".
Yes, this is a car that demands respect, as I have said before. After all, it does have hand-stitched Mandarin leather, and it is "screaming orange" with the outer paint job being "Midnight Sapphire". This is a definite car for the "one percent".
