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Rolls-Royce Dawn Production Comes to a Screeching Halt, No Replacement in Sight

Rolls-Royce had a bit of a problem back then. More specifically, the relatively high average age of its well-to-do customers. Torsten Muller-Otvos, the big kahuna at the British ultra-luxury automaker, says that the average improved to 42 years old in 2022, which is outstanding in this segment of the industry.
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Photo: Rolls-Royce / edited
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How did Rolls-Royce do it? For starters, the BMW-owned company introduced the Phantom Drophead Coupe in 2007. Then came the 7 Series-based Ghost in 2009, followed by two-door coupe and convertible versions of the Ghost. As for the production model that won over most of the brand's younger customers, that would be the Cullinan sport utility vehicle from 2018.

The Cullinan still has plenty of years left in it, and so does the Ghost. Rolls-Royce ended production of the Wraith earlier this year, and the time has come to pull the plug on the Dawn as well. Chief executive officer Torsten Muller-Otvos broke the news on social media with a photograph of no fewer than five superb cars.

Rolls-Royce also issued a press release in regard to the Dawn's end of production, a release that doesn't mention a thing about a successor. Rolls-Royce does mention that 80 percent of the body panels are unique to the Dawn, although the automaker purposely fails to add that both the Dawn and Wraith feature a similar wheelbase (i.e., 122.5 inches or 3,122 millimeters).

If there will ever be a case to be made for a brand-new Dawn, it's easy to imagine a Spectre with the roof hacked off. The only way forward for the Goodwood-based company is electric, more so with the Euro 7 standard on the horizon. And with the financial might of the BMW group, Rolls-Royce will eventually succeed in pivoting from ICE vehicles to electrics.

The Dawn may also be revived with second-generation Ghost underpinnings, although that's even less plausible than hacking the roof off the nearly-3-tonne Spectre (2,975 kilograms or 6,559 pounds). BMW stopped making V12s for its namesake vehicles in June 2022, and the writing is on the wall for the Rolls-Royce V12 as well. Not only does the N77 date back to 2008, but it's a tremendous gas hog that hurts the company's bottom line with something called CO2 emissions.

As you're well aware, manufacturers who sell new passenger vehicles in Europe are required to meet a fleet-average CO2 emissions target. If the average exceeds one gram per kilometer, said manufacturer has to pony up many euros multiplied by the number of new passenger vehicles it sells in a given year.

Immensely profitable though it may be, Rolls-Royce cannot afford to keep the V12 alive for the sake of tradition. Rolls-Royce is a profit-driven business just like the Munich-based automaker that owns it, and with Europe's dislike for all things fossil fuel, going electric is the only viable option for R-R.

On that note, when do you think we'll see the first prototypes of the Spectre Drophead out in the open?

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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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