2006 EVENTS

2006 EVENTS

ROLLS ROYCE VISIT

GOODWOOD

Thursday 9th February 2006

The South East Region of the MG Car Club MGF Register

Fs outside the Goodwood Plant	The Old	We had some other MG cars - A Y Type, Metro and V8 were joined later by another Metro and a ZS
Some people came in "ohter" cars and were relegated to the sidelines - Neil that means you !	The New Phantom	The pub at Dell Quay where we had lunch.
Rolls Royce - the next Generation - This is a prototype convertible RR likely to be called a Corniche.	The Future - Corniche ?

The MGCCSE accompanied us on a joint visit to the Rolls Royce Fac.....sorry "plant" at Goodwood in Sussex. The futuristic building is low lying and has a roof of grass and is surrounding by 450,000 newly planted trees making this a very Eco frinedly building that even collects rain water. Strangly for a company making some of the most gas guzzling monsters around they also only have 180 parking spaces for their 500 staff encouraging them to cycle or car share in to work. They also work 7am to 4pm to avoid rush hour traffic.

The plant itself is immaculate and virtually dust free. The massive space frames are manouvered by hand and all the components are fitted manually. The only sign of a robot was in the leather cutting room where a computer marked out the leather hides and automatically cut them. Everything else was done by hand.

It was incredible to see these huge and compliacted state of the art cars descend slowly along the short production line with unhurried and stress free staff carefully placing each item in the correct position. Each car is built to order and the "Spec" sheets could be scene attached to the protective covers on the sides of the cars - one lilac coloured vehicle had no less than five yellow Bespoke sheets attached to it - headed for the Middle East. In fact the Middle East is a big market for Rolls Royce as is the US and increasingly China. Most cars were finished in sombre tones - blacks, mulberry, silver, blue but we also came across one finished in Bright Red - for Saudi Arabia and another in a nice baby blue.

The engine is brought to the site complete and assembled to the gearbox, drive shafts and prop shafts on a special £1.5 million jig which is then pushed across to the car which is lifted into the air and then the powertrain secured as a whole unit from underneath.

The sheer range of leathers, stitching, embroidery, wood veneers and paint was unbelievable - basically you could have anything you wanted as long as it was legal - including a golden Spirit of Ecstasy - at a cool £45,000 extra !. You could always get the cheaper silver version at only £6000 or stick with the standard stainless steel at no extra cost to the minimum £256,000.37p you would be paying for one of these beauties. Most cars leave the factory do so at a price of some £270,000 to £280,000.

If the capacious rear cabin is still not big enough for your champagne fridge you can have another 10 inches added pushing the cost to a starting price of £290,000. Most clients ordering one of these generally pay £330,000 once the bespoke items are added.

Oh and if it rains you'll find two monogrammed silver handled umbrellas tucked neatly into the rear doors so you need never get wet.

A fascinating trip to this assembly plant and we were honoured to get a glimpse of the next model Rolls Royce - a convertible liekly to be named the Corniche. This prototype on show in the foyer has a windscreen surround carved from solid aluminum and houses a 9.2 litre V16 engine producing around 750bhp. The road version is still being developed and we were not allowed to see these as they were hidden from view. In fact the tours are being curtailled for 18 months whilst the next generation of Rolls Royce is kept under wraps and developed for road use some time in 2007.

After the tour we all headed to Dell Quay just outside Chichester for a splendid lunch over looking the harbour.

Thanks to Marc Hanson for organising this visit - even if he did bring the MG Metro and not the TF !