Der Neue Rolls-Royce

Designed in England and engineered in Germany, it's long on torque and short on recent history.

BY RAY HUTTON


Here is the first Rolls-Royce to be produced by its new owner, BMW, since the break with Volkswagen-owned Bentley. It's an intriguing German interpretation of the most famous of British cars. (Oddly enough, its name wouldn't be revealed until January, after we'd gone to press.)

We were given a close look recently at Rolls-Royce's new showpiece plant at Goodwood in Sussex, near England's south coast. Our first reaction to "der neue Rolls-Royce," as we were ushered into a plain white room and the covers were removed, was: They don't make cars like this anymore. It could only be a Rolls-Royce, but it's as if the last several generations of cars had been lost and forgotten. This is the return of the "early perpendicular Rolls-Royce" — tall, with a huge vertical grille like a Kenworth truck's, a long hood, and a body line that rises majestically toward the front. The trend of modern cars has been toward wedge shapes, with the windshield pushed forward; Rolls-Royce engineers laugh and say that their styling, inspired by the Phantoms and Silver Clouds of the past, is "cab backward."

The Roller's closest competitor, the short-wheelbase Maybach 57, has the look of an enlarged and emboldened Mercedes S-class. But in BMW's case, there is absolutely no danger that the Rolls-Royce will be confused with the 7-series, even if — as with the Maybach and parent Mercedes — BMW's top models provide much of its technology.

You won't find much hardware that is actually shared by Rolls-Royce and BMW. Project Rolls-Royce started early in 1999 with a team of five designers working in a rented apartment above a bank near Hyde Park in central London. Headed by Ian Cameron, a Scot who was responsible for the current BMW 3-series coupe, this mostly British group set out to establish what a 21st-century Rolls-Royce should be like. There were few preconditions about size or proportions. "We chose attributes rather than dimensions," says chief engineer Tim Leverton. "The result is the closest thing to a no-compromise car."

The engineering was done in Munich. A BMW V-12 powers the new Rolls, driving the rear wheels through the ZF six-speed automatic transmission that can be found in the current 7-series. The engine has direct gasoline injection, Valvetronic technology, and a variable intake system like the 760's but enlarged to the 6.75-liter displacement of the old Rolls motor, which is still used in the bigger Bentleys. It develops 455 horsepower, but the emphasis is on its torque — 527 pound-feet, 85 percent of which is available from 1000 rpm.

With all that grunt, it shouldn't be a bad performer. The development team says this car has been designed as much to be driven as to travel in. The upright driving position and the big, thin-rimmed steering wheel do not suggest a sporting character, but the engineers insist the new Roller can keep up with a Porsche 911 from a traffic light. The maximum speed of 150 mph is limited by the Michelin Pax System run-flat tires mounted on massive 20-inch wheels, chosen for comfort over ultimate speed.

It was clear that the body-and-chassis structure would be made of aluminum in the facility at the BMW Dingolfing factory that produces the hull of the Z8 roadster. Two thousand welds go into the underframe to which the outer panels are attached; most of those are aluminum, but the front fenders are sheet-molding-compound plastic and the trunklid is steel because the shape could not be formed satisfactorily in aluminum. At about 5500 pounds, this Rolls is 185 pounds heavier than a Silver Seraph but is also a significantly bigger car — just over 19 feet long.