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Rolls-Royce Design Chief Giles Taylor Explains Why the New Dawn Looks So Good

 While it’s easy to say you like the new Rolls-Royce Dawn, pointing out to what exactly makes it so special is a bit more difficult. A talk with Giles Taylor, the Rolls-Royce design chief, will clear the air in no time.
Rolls-Royce Dawn 22 photos
Photo: Rolls-Royce
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The new Dawn convertible manages to keep all the hallmarks that make a car a Rolls-Royce, but at the same time it also looks different, new, fresh. It looks a lot more agile than what we’ve come to expect from Rolls-Royce, and that’s big for a brand renowned for the fortresses on wheels it usually produces.

How did they do it? Well, not with the help of focus groups, that’s for sure. Talking to Automotive News, Giles Taylor said, "At the pinnacle end of the luxury market, the brand values are so particular and so carefully honed over a period of years - in our case over 114 years of history - we do not need to ask a number of customers, 'Do you think we are doing the right thing? Is this the right shape?'"

Giles Taylor has been working with Rolls-Royce since 2011 when he became the head of exterior design. Only one year later, he was named head of design, but even though Taylor has held that position for three years, the Dawn is the first Rolls-Royce model to bear his signature. You see, with a brand that launches so few cars and the long development time, it took him three years to finally test the public’s reaction to one of his cars.

Now, Taylor is working on the much talked-about Rolls-Royce crossover that should come in 2018 and replace the aging Phantom. He doesn’t state it clearly, but you can tell his main job is to make the Rolls-Royce brand more appealing to a younger audience, and there are two key factors for that: exterior and interior design, and technology.

"Dawn comes into this slightly younger era with more fluid movement and brings more people to our brand," Taylor said, quickly adding, "I wouldn't call it feminine. Wraith loosens the tie, but with Dawn you do not need a tie to drive the car or to be seen in a Rolls-Royce."

Taylor says we’ll see a little more variety in Rolls-Royce’s lineup in the future. The Phantom will remain an imposing vehicle whose redesign poses the biggest challenge of all. One thing is certain, though: it will keep the huge grille and everything else will be designed around it.

The crossover’s design hasn’t yet been finalized, so we don’t really know what to expect. It will probably sit somewhere in the middle, borrowing from Phantom’s menace and from Dawn’s softness to create a strange melange never before seen on a Rolls-Royce. Which makes perfect sense, since a Rolls-Royce crossover has also never been seen.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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