Rolls-Royce Dawn – a new beginning
One’s car is far more than transportation. It’s an outfit you get into, a costume, an avatar that sends a message to everyone about what type of person you are.
So, when your avatar is a Rolls-Royce, you’re a celebrity and truly on display. It never hurts to roll up to a place in a Rolls-Royce, it’s akin to a £220k business card. Everyone wants to know who you are, where you’re going, what you’re doing. More importantly, they want to know how you got to be so wealthy.
What with the Phantom production winding down (its replacement is due later this year); and their SUV incoming soon, the Dawn is leading the push for a younger, more dynamic clientele; Rolls-Royce is chasing new-age dot.com gazillionaires.
This is feel good motoring with a capital F. The interior has a clear focus on pampering: the seats are huge and plump and upholstered in the finest leather front and rear – you sink into their hide-bound grasp and never want for support. It’s all here – the lambs-wool floor mats, the two sturdy full-size umbrellas stowed within the guts of the rear-hinged suicide doors, elegant open-pore wood paneling, self-righting wheel centres. The “Spirit of Ecstasy” ornament on the end of the long bonnet that vanishes when you try and snatch it. The convertible interior is refined, highly stylish and very quiet.
Rolls-Royce insists that a folding hard-top isn’t brand appropriate thus, as you’d expect, the cloth top of the roof is heavily insulated and is lowered or raised gracefully by a very quiet mechanical system in less than 22 seconds. Once stowed away, a wood-paneled rear deck hides the drop-top canvas. The dash and the instruments cluster feature matt and polished metal finishes and its hooked with an advanced Multimedia Interface and navigation system.
The real Rolls-Royce touch comes with the stereo, dubbed Bespoke Audio, which uses a microphone to monitor ambient noise and adjust the volume and tone coming from 16 individually tuned speakers. This is refined motoring like no other; the quality is off-the-scale.
The Dawn officially tips the scales at 2,635kg (due in part to the sheer size of the hardware), it’s a 5.3m long giant and is propelled by the 530bhp V12, which will burn a £220k hole in your pocket (that’s without bespoke features from the options menu).”
My press vehicle has impressive add on’s including tech like the Satellite Aided Transmission software that reads the road ahead and selects the appropriate ratio according to your driving style. Safety too is kept in mind with its Active Cruise Control, which maintains a selectable distance to the vehicle ahead (and saved my bacon on the M25); Night Vision with an infrared camera that can detect pedestrians in low-light conditions at distances up to 1,000 feet; a Head-Up display; High-Beam Assistance; and a Lane Departure Warning system. The Camera System on the Dawn provides an almost 360-degree view around the vehicle with distance indicators.
This new Rolls is a superbly refined car you’d not naturally be inclined to hustle. Most of the time you finesse this car along, steering it with your fingertips. You won’t be tempted to speed but if you do need a moment of velocity, it’s there. Pedals and wheels respond to the slightest touch. When driving on a curvy road, the Dawn’s chassis responds with high precision. The road imperfections elicit zero quivers or shakes. On the open road, sustained high-speed cruising, is what its good at.
Being in a Rolls-Royce Dawn brings with it a sense of occasion. It drives unlike any other modern car. Yes, it has all the mod-cons you could wish for but it does not feel like a car which is obsessed with performance, its sole concern is your comfort.
There’s real substance behind the Dawn – with quality , roominess and a fabulously hushed drive to make you feel special every single day. There is a place in the world for a car like this: not everyone is fixated on ‘sports performance’ and there is a segment of the population where 0 – 60 doesn’t matter, folk who don’t really care about cornering. All they seek is indulgence.
Rolls-Royce’s are the most sensual and immersive luxury car experiences available. In losing its roof, the Dawn adds an extra sensory dimension to the scenario. Nothing looks, feels or behaves like a Rolls-Royce who, with the Dawn, have absolutely nailed the driving experience. The Dawn’s silken refinement, debonair sense of deportment and traffic-stopping presence can’t be matched by any other maker of convertibles, which kind of justifies the price. It’s utterly, bewitchingly magnificent.
The impressive interior provides world-class allure, first-class craftsmanship, and unrivalled comfort. So, if you are a socially connected, young, sun-loving, entrepreneurial go-getter, seeking that final bit of motivation to get your tech start-up concept off the drawing board and onto Bloomberg’s BSVX index, click www.rolls-roycemotorcars.com and configuring your own one-in-a-billion Dawn.
The endless optional extras
Your 2017 Rolls-Royce Dawn can be customized in a myriad of ways with a variety of solid exterior colours or two-tone exterior colours, convertible top colours, exterior pin-striping, wheel styles and sizes, interior colour themes, type and colour of seat piping, choice of interior embossments, a wide selection of different veneers, the colour of the headliner – the list is long.
Some optional features include front massage seats and a 1,300-watt Rolls-Royce Bespoke audio system that features 16 speakers, two exciters in the headliner, and an 18-channel amplifier that has a studio setting as well as a surround sound theatre setting. Additional available features include lamb’s wool floor mats, personalized door sills, headrests and seat pillows, a tailored indoor car cover, and a Wi-Fi hotspot.
My press vehicle’s bare-bones price is £220k. Once a few extras have been added, you’ve put down another £50k.
