Coachbuilding was once the most normal thing in the world, at least in the far from normal world of the pre-war car buyer. Nowadays, this form of car building is virtually extinct, but Rolls-Royce wants to change that.
Rolls-Royce wants to take the next step in the world of personalization, which is in high demand and made a lot of money in these regions of the automotive world. According to the British, one hundred percent of customers now opt for a car that has been tinkered with to a greater or lesser extent according to the ‘Bespoke’ program, which means that special colors or materials have been applied according to the customer’s wishes.
However, Rolls-Royce also wants to offer its customers the opportunity to go further than just the implementation of an existing model. In the coming years, the brand wants to focus more on the ancient tradition of ‘coach building’, in which a car model is specially made for and on behalf of one customer or a handful of customers. A fairly recent example of this appeared in 2017 in the form of the Sweptail, an enormous coupé that makes a Wraith fade to an ordinary wallflower.
Chassis
Now coach building mainly happened when the basis of a car was still formed by a loose chassis. A self-supporting body makes practice a lot more difficult, but according to Rolls-Royce it is precisely the structure of the current range that makes individual bodywork possible again. Modern ‘Rollsen’ are built around a modular aluminum spaceframe that looks a bit like a chassis and can be constructed in a highly flexible manner.
Rolls-Royce does not give concrete examples at the moment, but you can count on us to see more unique cars from the brand in the coming years. Or not, because some buyers would undoubtedly prefer that their car is not disclosed to the world.
Coachbuilding
‘Coachbuilding’ is the practice in which the car manufacturer only supplies a ‘moving chassis’ and leaves the building of a body to, you never guessed it, a body builder. When cars were still reserved for the very rich, this was a very common practice, especially with a make like Rolls-Royce.
In more recent times, however, these brands have also started building their bodies themselves and cars became more ready-to-wear. This has everything to do with revenue models and profit margins, but was further boosted by the fact that almost all cars switched to a self-supporting body. So there was no longer any question of a chassis on which such a ‘loose’ carriage could be mounted and therefore no coachbuilding either.
Even so, we occasionally see a unique ‘one-off’ emerge, but the changes are often limited to non-structural parts such as nose and butt. If not, then there is in fact a completely new car.