Rolls Royce is hoping to reverse a decade of decline in the open-top car market with its new Dawn convertible.
Many mass-market consumers have switched to SUVs.
But the new model, unveiled on Tuesday, is aimed at the super-rich. It’s likely that only they can afford to fork out 300,000 euros.
The BMW group is hoping to revive a once-stylish status symbol.
“It possesses a very – what I would call a special – sense of “la Dolce Vita”: a certain seductiveness brought on by that exhilarating
feeling of driving with all your wind in your hair,” said Rolls Royce’s CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös.
The company has declined to disclose sales figures for its more expensive Phantom convertible.
Plunging overall sales of convertibles partly reflect the shift in focus among carmakers to China – where the country’s smog-ridden cities are hardly the place for open-top cars.
The new Dawn is a sign that Rolls Royce believes there’s still a market for the convertible – for those with the money.