Rolling with the times

Live interview of RR CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes via the web. Walter C. Villa

“The sexiest Rolls-Royce ever built,” coined by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes, may hit you as some sore figure of speech as an oxymoron or a paradox thrown stressfully for flamboyance or exclamation point.

But after the simultaneous worldwide digital launch of the new Rolls-Royce Dawn last Sept. 8, the moniker really stuck like a viral meme as the event witnessed by 4,000 journalists across the globe reached No. 1, trending in social media via hashtags #RRDawn or #RollsRoyceDawn.

“Our new Rolls-Royce Dawn promises a striking, seductive encounter like no other Rolls-Royce to date, and begins a new age of open-top, super-luxury motoring,” said the German-born CEO.

“Dawn is a beautiful new motor car that offers the most uncompromised open-top motoring experience in the world. It will be the most social of super-luxury drophead motor cars for those who wish to bathe in the sunlight of the world’s most exclusive social hotspots. Quite simply, it is the sexiest Rolls-Royce ever built,” he added.

Rolls-Royce, the fleet car brand of Queen Elizabeth II, has always been synonymous with luxury, elegance, ceremony and royalty. Anything associated with big bucks, top brass—that’s Rolls-Royce. The Rolls-Royce of chocolates, the Rolls-Royce of chicken … you get the drift.

However, most anything with a classic stamp ends up with a grandpa’s seal, so naturally a Rolls-Royce could never be sporty-cool, the way cool kids would dream riding a top-down on an ocean boulevard.

A TOAST TO DAWN  From left, Rolls Royce Philippines GM Lito Jose, president Willy Ten and VP Mike Cua Walter C. Villa

Not anymore. With the Dawn, the world’s only true modern four-seater super-luxury drophead, is born.

Fusion illusion

Contrary to early hunches, the Dawn is not a Wraith drophead. Eighty-percent of the exterior body panels of the new Dawn are newly designed to accommodate an evolution of Rolls-Royce’s design language and to encapsulate highly contemporary, four-seat superluxury drophead architecture.

The vision was clear: to make a car that looks as beautiful with its roof up as with it down. At top down, the Dawn’s sleek curves are even more apparent.

From the side, the steep rake of the windscreen, the swage line that flows over the rear haunches, plus the high beltline that rises along the profile give the impression of effortless swiftness. The very same rising beltline wraps around the rear passenger cabin, akin to the collar of a jacket pulled up to protect the neck.

The deck itself is an amazing work of modern craftsmanship. Clothed in open-pore Canadel paneling that traces the horseshoe shape of the rear cabin, it demonstrates the great advances that the craftspeople in the Woodshop at the Home of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood have made in wood-crafting technology and techniques.

The wood on the deck, chosen by the customer to suit his or her individual taste, flows down the “waterfall” between the rear seats and around the cabin, clothing the interior door panels and enticing the owner to enter Dawn.

Just a PH dream?

ROLLS-ROYCE crossover in midnight blue

Deliveries on the new Rolls-Royce Dawn will commence on the second or third quarter of 2016 in other parts of the world.

Meanwhile, VIP sales manager Jefferson Lizardo of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Manila said the Philippines has no allocation for the Dawn next year since Rolls-Royce has a limited number of production and most of the bigger markets have consumed this already.

In 2017, there may be a window, Lizardo said, but to order the Dawn with basic options will need a six-month minimum lead time as ordering other Rolls-Royce models.

If buyers want the Dawn customized, they will have to contend with an open lead time of a year or two.

There’s still no price yet as of press time but Lizardo said it may be priced between the Ghost and the Phantom.

So just like a sexy lady, the new Rolls-Royce Dawn is just as hard-to-catch.