IT'S OFFICIAL. After more than 70 years, Rolls-Royce and Bentley are no longer part of the same company. In 1931 Rolls-Royce acquired the financially ailing Bentley Motors and the two celebrated marques existed side-by-side, but in 1998 a deal was completed by Volkswagen (VW) to purchase the marque's Crewe factory and, thought VW's chairman Ferdinand Piech, the rights to the names of the two eminent brands.
Compatriot Bernd Pischetsrieder, however, had other ideas. Pischetsrieder, then with BMW, successfully bid for the Rolls-Royce name, logo and Spirit of Ecstasy bonnet motif for a fraction of the price Volkswagen paid for Bentley. By a delicious irony, Pischetsrieder was ousted from BMW shortly afterwards, but has now succeeded Piech as the head of Volkswagen.
Part of the deal, concluded in 1998, allowed VW to continue to build Rolls-Royce models under licence from BMW. This expired last September. But another condition of the deal was that BMW could not release its own, new Rolls-Royce until 2003. No advance publicity would be permitted and even the Rolls-Royce name could not be used before that date. Hence, what became known as Project Rolls-Royce established a new assembly plant in Goodwood, Sussex on the estate of the car-mad Lord March.
The Rolls-Royce set-up in China has also changed. Sime Darby Hong Kong, a unit of the Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby Group - local distributors for BMW, Ford, Land Rover, Peugeot, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Suzuki - took over the luxury marque's distributorship for the mainland and the SAR on January 1. The new dealership will be called Rolls-Royce HK (tel: 2870 1692) and plans are 'under way for a showroom in Central and service facilities to be set up in Hong Kong and Kowloon. Similarly, Rolls-Royce centres are being planned for Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in the next few months,' says Sime Darby Hong Kong project director Peter Goh.
After four years of gradual and secretive development, the wraps finally came off the new Rolls-Royce Phantom at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this month.
The Phantom is a massive machine, standing on 20-inch wheels and in Michelin tyres. Over 5.8 metres long, the Phantom has an elegant presence that is enhanced by the traditional Rolls-Royce grille and the legendary motif which, incidentally, retracts to deter souvenir hunters.