A business writer I follow on Twitter posted an interesting thread about Rolls Royce and I figured I'd post some of the nuggets:

- Rolls Royce produces roughly 5,000 vehicles per year
- Each car is worked on by 50+ specialists
- 90% of Rolls Royce's are custom orders
- Paint: Over 44,000 colors and any request for paint will be accommodated The only robots in the factory are used to apply paint. A car can have up to 23 layers of paint (and it'll end up weighing 99 lbs)
- One man (Mark Court) does all pinstripes. He does them by hand (crazy) and uses brushes made of squirrel fir. It takes him 3 hours to do a single line. There's a cool YouTube video showing him working on a car - he is the last person to touch the car before delivery.
- The RR logo on the wheels doesn't rotate because the caps are on non rotating bearings
- Starlight: the interior of a Rolls can have lights that mimic the night sky. A light specialist weaves 1,300 fiber optic cables into the roof and can create various "shooting star" effects
- side note: I met a guy last year who owns several Rolls Royce's. He has them do the starlight design to match the exact star pattern of the day each person in his family was born. So one car will have his birthday star pattern, the next car has his wife's, etc. He looks up the star pattern for the day and year of the birthday and sends it to RR and they create it in the car. Talk about bespoke!
- Leather: Rolls sources leather from bulls (not cow leather) and a single car uses up to 9 hides. It takes 17 days to install the leather in a Rolls Royce. They use bulls instead of cows because cow leather is impacted during pregnancy)
- Wood Paneling: A single tree is used to panel the entire interior of a single car. The wood used on the left side of the car mirrors the right side.
- Silence: A Rolls has 300 pounds of acoustic insulation. The Continental tires also have special foam to reduce sound.

Credit for almost all of these facts goes to Trung Phan on Twitter. He's a business writer; this is the first thread I've seen him post about cars.

 

I feel they deserve the price tag $$$ they charge.
Custom work by the best craftsman costs money for the people who can afford it.

I wonder how many man hours it takes to make one, bet it's a lot.

 

My dad just bought a phantom. I'm looking forward to driving it.

 

That’s incredible! A friend of mine had a Ghost, Drophead, and another Rolls from the 80’s. I never got to ride in the cars before he sold them all but they were stunning up close. I knew those cars were impressive but never knew these details about them.

 

That’s incredible! Have you had the chance to drive it yet?

 

Stellar!
Waiting and hoping for your review if you feel like doing one.

 

Last of the v12 from Rolls. Good buy!

 

Personally. I would pass on driving a Phantom…because I can never buy one and don’t want to want one lol

 

Lol. I'm kinda scared to drive it. It's gigantic. He has to park it in the garage at an angle cuz it's so long.

 

I once got to drive a 1957 Rolls...a right-hand-drive version (a white one like this), but I didn't do a write-up on it because it is so different from a modern Rolls product, particularly one with left-hand-drive....I will if I get requests to.

 

Good. At least you know when to stop. If a Mercedes S-Class isn't enough car for somebody, then I don't know what to say LOL.

 

I mean, I ain’t buying a $700,000 car lol

 

......especially after putting that 700K into a new house.

 

It will ruin you. I still can't stop comparing things to it, at least it's not sporty so I don't compare those types of cars lol!

 

Wonder if they will do a VW Harlequin paint job?.........remember those from the 1990s?

(Just Kidding)

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