German Car Zone

We discover that the Phantom drophead coupe goes faster than the stink of how rich you’d have to get to buy one.

It’s always been easy to make fun of a Rolls-Royce. “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise is from the ticking of the bomb planted by the IRA.” But drive a new Phantom drophead coupe and the wisecracks will, ahem, drop right out of your head. There is a 453-hp, 6.8-liter 48-valve V-12 making the car capable of zero to 60 in 5.5 seconds (much faster than the IRA moves these days) and producing a top speed of 148 miles per hour. Computer limitation keeps the Rolls from accelerating further. I did not quite reach limited velocity on the corduroy- and moon *crater–textured squiggle of my local New Hampshire roads. Or, if I did, I’m not saying so within Google-reach of small-town police departments.

But I will say the Phantom goes faster than the stink of how rich you’d have to get to buy one. It handles with the educated precision of the Nobel Prize–winning physicist that you’d have to be to repair it. And, thanks to brake discs the size of precious and irreplaceable Edith Piaf original vinyl LPs (14.7 inches in front, 14.6 in back), the Phantom comes to a halt as abruptly as the fall in net worth among Rolls-Royce’s customers while the drophead coupe was in its poorly timed production-planning stage.

Combine the Phantom drophead coupe’s cardinal performance virtues with a 0.37 coefficient of drag (better than an E-type’s) and a six-speed automatic (two more gears than I can usually find when I’m trying to drive fast), and you get a car that makes you feel like you could win Le Mans. And you probably could win Le Mans, at least back in the day, before Gurney and Foyt and their Ford GT40 got into the act (and assuming Gurney and Foyt were driving your Rolls).

Such praise should come as no surprise for a car that starts at $448,000. It better be good. What’s shocking is not the enormity of the price or the enormity of the speed but the enormity of the enormity. A Phantom drophead coupe is almost as long and wide as a GMC Yukon XL and within one fat child of the same curb weight. Yet the Rolls drives like a Porsche—a Cayenne, at least. Wayne York Kung, product communications manager for Rolls-Royce North America, said it definitively: “The faster you drive, the smaller it gets.”


Full Story: Car and Driver - 2010 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe - Road Test


I must say the car is truly something, but this writeup is just plain stupid and couldn't be more off subject. What happened to telling us about the actual car? Anyway the car is stunning, but the color here is the worst. White is simply not the Drophead Coupe's color.

On a different note I just saw a NGC special on the Rolls factory. The care and exactness that goes into making these cars is just extraordinary. The materials and the sheer amount of hands on time is really something.


M

Some of the pictures are like ***...LOL

Ultimate Factories | Rolls-Royce | Photos | National Geographic Channel

This car is a dream. I was blow away when a RR product manager showed me the pick nick kit as well demonstrating that the boot lid serves as a bench for two people.

Rolls-Royce announced today that it has appointed a new dealership in Plainview, Long Island, New York. The dealership, owned by Stuart Hayim, is scheduled to open tomorrow.

The opening of a Rolls-Royce dealership is a rare sight. The British company has only 34 authorized locations in North America, with 31 of those located in the U.S. Interestingly enough, five are within a 50-mile radius of Manhattan. We suppose Rolls-Royce is not having any trouble selling its cars there.

The expanding dealer network will likely be needed if the new Rolls-Royce Ghost is as much of a hit as we think it'll be. The Ghost was officially unveiled at the 2009 Frankfurt motor show. Pricing is expected to be nearly half that of a Phantom, which starts in the neighborhood of $380,000. We're not sure of a launch date, but it can't be too far off.

Rolls-Royce Announces Long Island Dealership ? Automotive News & Car Rumors at Automobile Magazine


My respect for Rolls-Royce is growing with every advance.


Yes Eni, seeing how the Phantom is made is astonishing.


M