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I\'ve just seen a Rolls Royce Phantom (the new one) for the first time and I\'m still reeling from the shock. The photographs don\'t do it justice - it really really is pig ugly! Doesn\'t look too bad from the rear threequarter angle but that\'s about it. How can designers get the proportions of that classic radiator so wrong? The grille is too wide and the whole front of the car is six inches too high for the overall shape. I presume someone did admire the Camargue after all? The interior woodwork looked to be of excellent quality but there was so much there that the \'driving compartment\' as RR used to describe it reminded me of a 1950s cocktail cabinet. When I took a close look at the body I couldn\'t believe my eyes. The shut lines around the bonnet and front doors were so wide you could look in and see the rubber stops. I saw it parked outside the casino in Monte Carlo so I was able to compare it directly with drop-dead gorgeous Bentley Continentals nearby and (just around the corner) a real RR Silver Cloud 1 and a real 1920s Phantom in the Prince Rainier car collection museum. Dear dear. At least I would know where not to put my £250,000 I guess. Or maybe I\'m just too picky...
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I think possibly that you are not the target audience. Perhaps we should ask our American cousins what they think.
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Maybe you're right.
I think build quality - or lack of it - must be a problem whatever the target market though. Lexus and others seem to be able to do better for far less money.
Come to think of it, that front might look better tacked onto an oversize SUV...
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At least I would know where not to put my £250,000 I guess
Me too. I'd asked my chauffeur to remember to order one of these this year, but now I've told him he'll have to make do with the old Rolls. Phew!
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....really is p*g ugly!
One could feel quite insulted. I've seen one it ia very ugly
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I wonder, though, whether beauty was in any way a design goal.
The target buyer for this car is a person who can spend £250,000 on a four-seat car which does nothing that a £20,000 Skoda Superb couldn't do (other than give a little more passenger room and be slightly quieter).
At that sort of money, maybe the makers have twigged that the real purpose of the machine is to show off the buyer's wealth ... so the design goal is brash and imposing rather than beautiful?
The husband of one of my mum's friends had a Rolls, and this (very nice) man's business eventually went splot. I asked this very posh woman how she felt about being driven around instead in a rusty seven-year-old car, and her answer was "relieved". She really enjoyed being able to sit on the seat, rather than having to hide on the floor in case any of her friends saw her in the vulgar Rolls!
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The target buyer for this car is a person who can spend £250,000 on a four-seat car which does nothing that a £20,000 Skoda Superb couldn't do (other than give a little more passenger room and be slightly quieter).
You are wrong there. A Superb doesn't have a brolly that fits in the rear door and doesn't have hub caps that always sit the right way up!
In my opinion these 2 things are well worth £230k.
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Only going on the pictures but compared to the RR a Hummer is a thing of consummate beauty.
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This thread reminds me of the discussion between Clarkson and Simon Cowell about the Maybach. Clarkson couldn't believe that Cowell could buy a Maybach because it was so damn ugly. Cowell countered with the point that it's not a car for driving or to look at - it's a car to be driven in and, for that, there's nothing better.
I guess for Rollers, it's much the same. A great many of their buyers will be sitting in the back, not at the wheel.
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"The target buyer for this car is a person who can spend £250,000 on a four-seat car which does nothing that a £20,000 Skoda Superb couldn't do (other than give a little more passenger room and be slightly quieter). "
and
"it's a car to be driven in and, for that, there's nothing better."
Nothing better for showing your complete lack of taste, zero interest in the environment and knowledge that wherever you go in a city with it, you Must have a prepared parking space 'cos it won't fit in any "normal" slot.
Only for those with inflated egos who have an identity crisis and a sense of inferiority to assuage ..
And RR have not made a decent looking car for at least 40 years so their "new car" clientele (sp?) have well established bad taste.
Wallowing barges is a good description.. makes the late Mercedes S class 600 (prior mid 1990s model) look like the epitome of good taste. That takes some doing:-)
madf
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Just a little update...
Last Saturday's Telegraph has just reached me in France and what do I see on the front page of the motoring supplement but an advert for the Rolls Royce Phantom! What's that about?
Surely it must be decades since RR had to advertise and you could probably count the number of readers who might be potential buyers on the fingers of less than one hand.
Reminds me that not long ago Renault was advertising the delights of possessing a company pre-owned Avantime - factory since closed...
The vast majority of motorists may not be wealthy but they know what looks right!
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