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Buyers flipping a Rolls-Royce Spectre won't be tolerated, company says

The act of flipping cars — that is, buying a limited or highly desirable model and then reselling it for big profit — wonÂ’t go unnoticed, or be tolerated, by Rolls-Royce. Specifically referring to the new Rolls Spectre — the first electric car from the brand — Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos told Car Dealer that any customer who sells or try to sell one will be blacklisted for life if he attempts to buy another from a dealer. Speaking at the launch of the new car in California, he said: ‘I can tell you we are really sanitizing the need to prove who you are, what you want to do with the car – you need to qualify for a car and then you might get a slot for an order.” But those who violate the policy and resell the vehicle at a higher price are “going immediately on a blacklist and this is it – you will never ever have the chance to acquire again.Â’ The super-luxe Spectre is to open its order books soon with deliveries to start in the autumn. Base price in the UK is about $425,000. The response from some dealers in Britain, who say the inflated price resales are legal, was resentment at Rolls. London dealer Tom Hartle, known for selling secondhand Rolls-Royce models, said that he has already agreed to collect GBP50,000 ($65,000) premiums for two Spectres. He said he will have a Spectre for sale at his used-car dealership "within two weeks of it being launched.” ”I do not think it is fair for carmakers to tell customers who have spent close to half a million pounds on a car what they can do with it,” he told Car Dealer. Last year, General Motors said it would ban flippers "from placing future sold orders or reservations if the vehicle is resold within the first 12 months of ownership." Those high-demand products were the Corvette Z06, the Cadillac Escalade-V, and the GMC Hummer EV. And years ago, Ford famously sued wrestler and actor John Cena, who flipped a Ford GT in violation of his purchase contract. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. At Rolls, the company maintains that it has paid close attention to SpectreÂ’s specifics while in development. "To do this, “ Muller-Otvos said, “we have conceived the most demanding testing program in Rolls-RoyceÂ’s history. We will cover 2.5 million kilometers – a simulation of more than 400 years of use for a Rolls-Royce, on average – and we will travel to all four corners of the world to push this new motor car to the limit,"

Trump reportedly says he wants to wipe German cars off the U.S. map

BERLIN/FRANKFURT — A report that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pursue German carmakers until there are no Mercedes-Benz rolling down New York's Fifth Avenue dented shares in the luxury car manufacturers on Thursday. An excerpt from German magazine Wirtschaftswoche's article, which cited several unnamed European and U.S. diplomats but did not include any direct quotes, could not be independently verified, while a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Berlin referred questions to Washington. The news and current affairs magazine said Trump had told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that he aimed to push German carmakers out of the United States altogether. Macron's administration in Paris declined to comment on the report. The Trump administration last week opened a so-called Section 232 trade investigation into vehicle imports, which could result in a 25 percent tariff on cars on the same "national security" grounds Washington used to impose metals duties in March. This could destroy exports by German carmakers, which control 90 percent of the U.S. premium market and are the biggest European Union exporters of cars to the United States. BMW owns Rolls-Royce, while Daimler has Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen controls Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Audi. Daimler, BMW and Audi declined comment. Porsche was not immediately available for comment. BMW shares were trading 0.5 percent lower at 0939 GMT, while Daimler and VW's shares were down 1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, underperforming Germany's blue-chip DAX. Trump has railed against German carmakers before. And in early 2017, in an interview with German newspaper Bild, he said he would impose 35 percent tariffs on imported cars. At the time, the president called Germany a great car producer but said that the business relationship with the United States was an unfair one-way street. Germany's auto industry association VDA says its members exported 657,000 vehicles to North America last year, with total exports of vehicle components, cars, engines, as well as second-hand vehicles totaling 31.2 billion euros in 2016. Imports from the United States to Germany amounted to 7.4 billion euros, meaning a trade deficit of 23.8 billion euros the VDA's latest available figures show. However, German brands also have huge factories in the United States, where they built 804,000 cars last year, VDA said, providing jobs for U.S. workers. Berlin has reacted angrily to the U.S.

Home of Rolls-Royce Collection makes debut at the Quail

Rolls-Royce is marking 10 years of production at its Goodwood, England home, with the aptly named Home of Rolls-Royce Collection. The first instance of the Collection, a brilliantly appointed Phantom, has come to The Quail to make its world debut.
The goal of the Home of Rolls-Royce Collection seems to be to really showcase the kind of pristine, detailed work that the artisans back in Goodood are capable off, while creating a car that almost instantly achieves heirloom status. The Phantom seen here displays a truly impressive wood paneled cabin, where a technique called marquetry has been used to inlay some 170 sections of 11 different types of wood into a "celebration" motif.
You'll find a compass theme throughout the car as well - inside and out - which the company tells us is meant to highlight the sales of Goodwood-built Rollers on five continents across the world. Compass designs can be found on the armrests and center console, with each piece of embroidery taking more than 100,000 stitches to create. Not to be outdone in terms of time lavished, the compass motif painted on the exterior of the car takes one squirrel-hair-brush-wielding craftsman six hours to perfectly apply.