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Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited is a British luxury automobile maker.
The company operates from purpose-built administrative and production facilities opened in 2003 across from the historic Goodwood Circuit in Goodwood, West Sussex, England, and United Kingdom.
A single automobile can take up to six months! Why does it take so long?
Nearly every task is completed by hand.
But beyond that, customizing a Rolls-Royce means more than choosing from a library of door trim woods and seat leathers.
As a Rolls-Royce customer, you’re welcome to contribute your own unique design ideas for your car.
The British automaker’s factory slows down the car-building process so that each element may be crafted to perfection.
They say, as soon as you step into the factory, you can feel the difference in the calm, productive flow of work, with small teams focusing on one aspect each— like seat upholstery, interior siding, or dashboards.
Technically being an assembly line, in practice, it is much more like a team of artisans combining their skills to create something remarkable.
Covid-19 spurred wealthy motorists to buy more Rolls-Royces than ever before because it made them realize life is short, the luxury carmaker has said.
As global cases escalated in 2021, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, based in Goodwood, West Sussex, booked the highest annual sales in its 117-year history, selling 5,586 vehicles.
The buoyant figures came against a drop in sales across the wider car market, with the UK, for example, recording just 1.65 million new cars sold last year — a rise of just 1 per cent in 2020 and a 28.7 per cent contraction from 2019.
Britain’s car industry was hammered by the pandemic in 2020 with new car sales suffering the biggest fall since the 1940s, and an expected recovery in 2021 not materializing as the supply chain crisis saw a global chip shortage that halted manufacturing in factories across the world.
The luxury market appears much more upbeat, with premium and luxury car sales growing more broadly in key global markets such as China and the US as pandemic travel restrictions have left wealthy consumers with more disposable income.
The YOLO (You Live Only Once) effect according to the CEO Muller-Otvos:
The company’s chief executive, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, said the pandemic had led to customers, whose average age was 43, responding to the reminder of their own mortality by splashing out on luxury cars.
He said the carmaker, owned by BMW, had also benefited from the restrictions the pandemic had placed on wealthy consumers’ opportunities to spend their money elsewhere.
According to him, ‘’ Many people witnessed people in their community dying from Covid and that made them think life can be short and you’d better live now rather than postpone until a later date.
It is very much due to Covid that the entire luxury business is booming worldwide. People couldn’t travel a lot, they couldn’t invest a lot into luxury services … and there is quite a lot of money accumulated that is spent on luxury goods.’’
No other manufacturer sold more cars for more than €250,000 (£208,000), he said.
The Phantom model was the company’s biggest seller but its Cullinan SUV accounted for 30% of 2021 sales.
Coming soon – Rolls Royce’s first Electric Vehicle EV
CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös described the 2021 results as “hugely encouraging as we prepare for the historic launch of Spectre, our first all-electric car”.
Due in late 2023, the electric Rolls-Royce will be a sleek four-seat coupe in the style of the current Wraith. Goodwood is being readied for the switch to EV production, with some 37 new apprentices joining the team later this year.
Müller-Ötvös also hinted that Rolls-Royce will “continue to evolve as a true luxury brand, beyond the realms of automotive manufacturing”.
What form this may take isn’t yet clear, but the brand could follow the lead of Bentley, which markets its own home furnishings, jewellery, ski and golf equipment, fragrances and more.
