New Rolls-Royce Limo Yours for Just $185,000
In the Middle East, the average customers for Rolls-Royce limousines are oil-rich Arab sheiks; in Europe, they’re senior executives who run their own multinational corporations, and in the United States, most are self-made multimillionaires living in Southern California.
Rolls-Royce officials cited that information Thursday as they visited Los Angeles to unveil their newest limo--the $185,000 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur Limousine, the first limousine built by the British auto maker for the U.S. market in 18 years.
“Southern California accounts for 11% to 14% of our worldwide market,” said A. Peter Young, Western regional executive for the U.S. subsidiary of Rolls-Royce Motors Ltd. “It’s been that way since the early 1970s.”
By any other auto maker’s standards, of course, the number of cars sold each year in this country by Rolls-Royce would be a catastrophe. But Rolls-Royce is quite satisfied with the 1,083 cars it sold in the United States last year. And it expects sales here to increase at least 10% in 1985, if the U.S. economy remains buoyant.
Potential buyers take note: There is a waiting list. “If you said you wanted one today,” said Peter T. Ward, managing director-sales and marketing division, “you’d be nine months away from getting the car--at the quickest.”
It takes this long because each car is hand-assembled.
It takes 13 flawless cowhides to upholster each of the 2.5-ton, seven-passenger cars. Standard equipment includes a burled walnut console housing a color TV and video recorder and a “concert-hall quality” stereo system “with all the bells and whistles you could possibly hope for in a sound system,” Ward said.
Cocktail cabinets containing cut-glass decanters and glasses are recessed into each side of the car. (In the Middle East, where alcoholic beverages are illegal, cologne bottles are substituted for the decanter.) Color-coordinated vacuum flasks are stowed beneath the center console. A refrigerator with separate compressor keeps food and beverages properly chilled.
