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Corniche Comeback: New Rolls-Royce coupe spotted testing

It's been over a decade since Rolls-Royce last offered a Corniche, which was the company's name for its unibody coupe and convertible models since the early 1970s. But from the looks of what our photographers recently snapped in Munich, that drought may soon be over.
What they've spied is the 2014 Rolls-Royce Corniche coupe, a forthcoming model based on the Rolls-Royce Ghost. Never mind the fake door handles and rear doors on the test mules, the production Corniche will have just two suicide doors like its big brother the Phantom coupe.
Powertrain will probably be carried over from the Ghost sedan, meaning a 6.6-liter V12. We suspect that BMW will roll out its new Roller at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2013. Until then, our spies will keep their eyes open for more prototypes, including the oft-rumored convertible.

Rolls-Royce reveals Year of the Dragon-themed customer commissions

Most buyers who order a new Rolls-Royce customize it through the brand's Bespoke department, and four recently requested a car inspired by the Year of the Dragon, which starts on February 10 in China. The company is highlighting the meticulous design changes it made. The batch of four Lunar New Year-themed cars is split into three units of the Phantom Extended and one example of the Cullinan. And, surprisingly, not all of them are headed to the Chinese market; Rolls-Royce says that the orders came from three different continents. Its designers started by creating a dragon logo specifically for the four builds. It's hand-stitched or hand-painted depending on the application. Red has historically been associated with the Year of the Dragon, it represents prosperity and good fortune in Chinese culture, and it defines the look given to three of the four cars (the fourth hasn't been unveiled yet). One of the Phantom Extended models is finished in a two-tone Cherry Red and silver livery with hand-painted Phoenix Red pinstripes and the dragon logo on each fender. The Cullinan is finished in Selby Gray and Cherry Red with white pinstripes and logos, while the second Phantom is black with Phoenix Red pinstripes and no dragon logos.  Painting the dragon logo that appears on the dashboard in three of the four cars is a complex, multi-step process that takes over two weeks. Rolls-Royce notes that the logo is the work of one artist who overlays multiple shades of red in four individual stages to achieve a 3D effect. Look up and you'll see another dragon; it's in the Starlight headliner. It consists of 677 stars that shine to create a dragon's shape and an additional 667 stars spread out across the panel. Designing this headliner took over three months and making it requires over 20 hours. There's no word yet on how much Rolls-Royce charged for each commission, but we're guessing price wasn't a concern.  Related video:

Over 10 years of research went into the Rolls-Royce Spectre EV

Rolls-Royce's first series-produced electric model, the 577-horsepower Spectre, made its debut in October 2022. Electrification suits the British luxury brand well, as its clients primarily prefer a smooth and quiet ride over a deep exhaust note that sends chills down your spine. But the company's top executive told Autoblog that finding the right path to the EV segment required over a decade's worth of research. The electric 102EX prototype from 2011 helped blaze this path. It wasn't approved for production, but it showed Rolls-Royce what to do. "We never intended at that time that we would bring [the 102EX] to the market," company boss Torsten Muller-Otvos told me on the sidelines of the 2023 Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance. "I joined Rolls-Royce in 2010, and I was always in the belief that we need to look into alternative propulsions for the brand." Rolls-Royce is part of the BMW Group, and this practice is common throughout the company: BMW and Mini experimented with electric prototypes at that time as well, and the iX5 presented in 2023 will bolster the firm's hydrogen research. Rolls-Royce learned several lessons from the 102EX project. One was to simply keep on keeping on. "One clear learning from all of our clients worldwide is to make sure that it is a Rolls-Royce first and an electric car second, not the other way around. [The Spectre] smells like a Rolls-Royce, it feels like a Rolls-Royce, and it sounds like a Rolls-Royce — [that means that] there is no sound, obviously. [There is] no funky dashboard, huge screen, or whatever. That would not be us," he continued. Customers also told Rolls-Royce not to make a car defined by superlatives. These buyers aren't concerned about having the longest driving range or the quickest acceleration time, largely because they already have a variety of different cars in their fleet plus access to private jets. This also explains why many Rolls-Royce models aren't used as long-distance cars in spite of a powerful V12 engine and a spacious interior. "It was clear that we don't need to be number one with outrageous range; a range of [about 310 miles] is totally sufficient for our clients. [The EX project] also gave us the right logic behind battery size, what we need to do in terms of body shape, and what the car should look like. It's a very fine balance between range, the size of the battery, and what kind of compromises you suddenly get into the entire design of the car. I'm going to say we learned a lot.