Fresh from the hugely successful Digital Dawn online launch earlier this month, which saw the new Rolls-Royce Dawn’s debut trending #1 worldwide on Google and watched by 4,000 media around the world; and following its World Premiere at the Frankfurt International Motor Show last week, the new benchmark in open-top luxury motoring has made its regional debut in the Middle East.
Using the medium of early morning dawn light resulting in a burst of sunshine, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars revealed the most social and seductive of motor cars to media and customers assembled at the Armani Hotel in Dubai, UAE.
“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. 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.” Said Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
“…Accept nothing nearly right or good enough.”
Compromise is not a word recognised in the Rolls-Royce lexicon. Indeed the company continues to live by the clarion cry of co-founder Sir Henry Royce to “Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it. Accept nothing nearly right or good enough.”
The final part of that maxim – “Accept nothing nearly right or good enough” has guided the Rolls-Royce design and engineering teams as they have worked to initiate a new age for open-top, super-luxury motoring. In a sector exclusively populated by the biggest of automotive compromises – the 2+2 seat configuration – Rolls-Royce accepted no compromise.
And so, the new Rolls-Royce Dawn, the world’s only true modern four-seater super-luxury drophead, is born.
The new Rolls-Royce Dawn stands apart from its stable mates, featuring 80% unique body panels.
Indeed such attention has been paid to ensuring this amazing new dawn for super-luxury motoring delivers on its promise, even the tyres that connect the new Rolls-Royce Dawn to the road are new.
The Silent Ballet
Specific engineering and manufacturing attention has been paid to the creation of the Dawn’s roof. Unheard of anywhere in the modern motor industry until now, the roof of the Rolls-Royce Dawn delivers the silence of a Wraith when up and operates in almost complete silence in just over 20 seconds at a cruising speed of up to 50kph.
Working with a fabric roof configuration, the Rolls-Royce engineering team set themselves a challenging goal which they were unwilling to compromise on – to make the quietest convertible car in the world today. This quest for silence applied to all aspects of the engineering of the new roof and by extension the new motor car.
Firstly, the passengers’ on-board aural experience roof up and roof down while in motion had to be pure Rolls-Royce. The design of the roof had to be graceful, beautiful and sensuous whilst remaining one of the largest canopies to grace a convertible car. Indeed, the Dawn’s roof is the second largest fabric roof applied to a current production car, second only to that of the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe.
The silent lowering of the soft top – dubbed “The Silent Ballet” by Rolls-Royce engineers – transforms the Rolls-Royce Dawn, delivering a true Dawn moment. In hero specification of Midnight Sapphire exterior and Mandarin leather interior, night becomes day as rays of sunshine burst forth, bringing the inside out, joining this social space with the wider world of possibilities.
It is safe to say that the new Rolls-Royce Dawn is the quietest open top car ever made.
2+2 ≠ 4
“In the world of Rolls-Royce, day to day mathematical norms don’t always apply. That’s why I say in the case of the new Rolls-Royce Dawn, 2+2 does not equal 4”: Giles Taylor, Director of Design, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.
Studying the open-top motor car sector, and specifically its high-value luxury niche, it became apparent to Rolls-Royce’s designers that customers were being short-changed. The myopic focus on one specific configuration – the 2+2 setup – was, in the view of Rolls-Royce, a compromise too far.
