FEATURE CARS ROLLS-ROYCE PHANTOM COUPÉ & CONVERTIBLE
It is a natural question for the casual motoring observer who hasn't had the privilege of owning a Rolls-Royce: just how good are the cars built under new ownership at the Goodwood factory in Sussex? The short answer is heaped with positives if the opinion of two Goodwood car owners in Australia is anything to go by.
Ray Delaney and Ralph Plarre have, between them, owned no less than 14 Rolls-Royce and Bentleys and still own both pre-Goodwood and current models. These two Phantoms are both 2009 production; Ray's is the Coupé and Ralph's the Convertible. We will endeavour to assess just how good they are - do they live up to a standard that allows the traditionalists to get over Britain's greatest motoring jewel ending up in German ownership?
How this happened is a story in itself, and one we've covered in detail several times in As a quick re-cap, Vickers let it be known late in 1997 that Rolls-Royce would be sold, but employees and observers alike assumed this would simply be an orderly handover to BMW, with whom Crewe were already closely associated thanks to the use of BMW drivetrains and other parts in the forthcoming Arnage and Silver Seraph models. So it appeared until the summer of 1998 when BMW's bid of £340 million was gazumped by a larger bid from Volkswagen AG, who acquired the Crewe plant andSilver Seraph completed in 2002.
