- Rolls Royce’s coachbuilt Nightingale project has moved to the dynamic testing phase.
- The 5,760 mm roadster is as long as a Phantom limo, but only has seating for two.
- Unusual test protocol involves opening and closing “piano” lid trunk 15,000 times.
Do Rolls Royce owners even open their trunks, or do they have someone to do it for them? We’re not rich enough to know the answer, but whoever is tasked with stashing and retrieving luggage from the automaker’s coachbuilt Nightingale roadsters won’t have to worry about the trunk mechanism going wrong. By our estimation it will have seen 200 years’ worth of action before being delivered.
The Nightingale is a fully electric convertible that must be the sportiest thing to feature the Spirit of Ecstasy since Henry Royce was still steering the ship in the early 1930s. It kicks off the brand’s Coachbuild Collection series and is limited to 100 units. Each one is estimated to set its owner back a staggering $9.5 million, and that’s before Rolls adds any really special personalization requests to the bill.
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At a colossal 226.8 inches (5,760 mm) long, and offering space for only two passengers, the Nightingale has the kind of length to seats ratio that makes even Detroit’s most wasteful 1970s land yachts look as space efficient as a Japanese Kei car. But because the design draws inspiration from luxury watercraft, it kind of works. Hey, we said “kind of.”
My favourite feature is the tiny cashmere top that’s been designed to let the sound of raindrops through, while blocking out what little mechanical noise the electric powertrain generates. But the most arresting feature is certainly that huge boat-tail rear end and the “piano boot” (trunk) that opens sideways like the lid on a baby grand.
Rolls Royce says the mechanism is subjected to 15,000 cycles of opening and closing, ensuring repeated use “never interrupts the perfect theatre and effortless operation of this hallmark gesture for generations to come.”
Two Lifetimes Of Use
Assuming these cars are used maybe once a week (and that’s probably a generous assumption), and the trunk is used opened and closed twice on each of those days, Rolls has probably tested the hardware for the equivalent of around 150 years of use.
But that’s not the only testing the automaker has planned for the Nightingale, which translates as Le Rossigni in French, and was the name of Henry Royce’s villa on the Riviera. Royce and his team used the villa as a testing base when putting cars through their paces across Europe, and the modern Rolls claims it will spend 350 weeks testing the coachbuilt convertibles in similar locales.
They’ll be subjected to twisty Mediterranean roads, snowy Arctic Circle ones and even tackle North African deserts and 2,750 m (9,020 ft) mountains. Most of which, owners will never do, just as they’re unlikely to test the accuracy of the 155 mph (250 km/h) speed limiters. But when you’re trying to sell someone a car costing the thick end of $10 million, you damn well better get it right.
