Rolls-Royce opens up to a new Dawn

Published May 13, 2015

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Los Angeles, California - Rolls-Royce has confirmed that the long-awaited Wraith convertible will be named the Dawn - and that it will be launched during the first quarter of 2016.

The new drophead coupé was shown to representatives of the company's 130 dealers worldwide at the 2015 Rolls-Royce dealer conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes said: “The Dawn is a beautiful new open-top motor car with a name that suggests the fresh opportunities that every new day holds - an awakening, an opening up of one's senses and a burst of sunshine.”

It would be the next step, he said, in the renewal of the company's range that began in 2003 with the introduction of the Phantom, followed by the Ghost and Wraith.

The new convertible is, of course, based on the Wraith platform, and is expected to share its 465kW, 6.6-litre biturbo V12, drivetrain and suspension architecture.

POSEMOBILE

In the time-honoured tradition of open-top motoring, however, it will almost certainly be set up for a more comfortable ride than the performance-orientated Wraith. Used to be this was to obviate 'scuttle shake', the visible body flexure attendant on sawing the roof off a monocoque body-shell, but these days it's mostly to emphasise the luxury drop-top's primary function as a posemobile for the beautiful people.

The development mule that has been spied in cold-weather testing over the past few months carries a removable hard-top, but its expected that the production Dawn will have a fabric top, like the Phantom Drophead Coupé.

Following the same example, the topless two-door was provisionally codenamed Wraith Drophead Coupé, but BMW's marketing mavens eventually decided to give it an identity of its own.

After briefly flirting with the idea of calling it the Corniche, they revived another very special name in Rolls-Royce history: Silver Dawn was the name given to just 29 stunningly beautiful drophead coupés made between 1950 and 1954 - the very first Roll-Royce model to be offered with a factory-built body, created to special order only for individual customers.

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