Rolls-Royce Motor Cars opens new showroom in Chennai. The showroom features a dedicated Bespoke Commissioning Atelier where customers can personalise their vehicles. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has opened a new showroom in Chennai, expanding its presence in southern India and providing customers with a dedicated space for commissioning customised vehicles. Designed to reflect Rolls-Royce's global visual identity, the showroom features a dedicated Bespoke Commissioning Atelier where customers can personalise their vehicles. It also includes a Cabinet of Curiosities displaying Indian art and design, intended to support the customisation process and reflect local influences. The showroom's entrance draws inspiration from the marque's Pantheon grille, while the overall layout is designed to provide customers with a space to explore vehicle specifications, materials and bespoke design options. "India occupies a unique place in the Rolls-Royce story. For more than a century, Indian patrons have commissioned some of the most remarkable and imaginative motor cars ever created," said Jenkins. He added that the new showroom reflects the company's approach to luxury and its commitment to the Indian market. The showroom was inaugurated on October 15 in the presence of Julian Jenkins, Director of Sales & Brand at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, who was visiting the region. The facility builds on the company's presence in Chennai, where its dealer, KUN Exclusive, has been serving customers since 2013. Vasanthi Bhupathi, Dealer Principal at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Chennai (KUN Exclusive), said the redesigned facility builds on the partnership's decade-long relationship with the brand. She noted that the showroom has been developed to serve customers in Chennai and across southern India. India has a long history with Rolls-Royce, with customers commissioning vehicles tailored to their preferences. The company said the new showroom aims to continue this tradition by offering a dedicated setting for bespoke commissions. The opening comes as Rolls-Royce reports growth in the Indian market. India was the company's fastest-growing market in the Asia-Pacific region in 2025, according to the company. Globally, Rolls-Royce has also been expanding its Bespoke capabilities at its headquarters in Goodwood, West Sussex, in the UK. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is a wholly owned subsidiary of BMW Group. Its vehicles are designed, engineered and manufactured at its Goodwood facility in the UK.

Rolls-Royce Beverly Hills makes commissioning the draw. October 6, 2026 Rolls-Royce Beverly Hills opens a new showroom with a Black Badge Lounge, putting personal commissions alongside its electric Spectre Series II. A beautiful dealership is easy to admire. The more useful question is what it enables a customer to do. The new Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Beverly Hills showroom puts that question at the center of its opening announcement: commissioning, hospitality and client relationships receive as much attention as the vehicles. According to the October 1 release, the O'Gara Coach dealership has opened one of North America's largest Rolls-Royce showrooms. No floor area or comparative ranking accompanies that claim. Size is therefore background; the meaningful development is a space designed to encourage clients to create more personal cars. For buyers, the distinction matters. A lavish room can make an expensive purchase feel special, but the lasting value comes from the finished commission, the clarity of the agreement and the support available after delivery. The chandelier does not appear on the service invoice. Rolls-Royce Beverly Hills sells creative access. The release describes Beverly Hills as a leading market for Bespoke commissions, both in North America and worldwide. It supplies no regional totals, so that position should be understood as the company's assessment rather than an independently ranked league table. Still, the stated emphasis explains the showroom's purpose. Rolls-Royce's Bespoke program allows clients to personalize their vehicles. The practical appeal is creative involvement: a buyer can discuss the intended result instead of simply choosing a car already sitting in inventory. The new environment is presented as a place to explore those decisions and spend time with other clients. A sensible commissioning conversation should establish which requests can be fulfilled, what each costs, when specifications become binding and how changes affect delivery. Those are buyer recommendations, not promises announced for this dealership. The opening release contains no commissioning prices, delivery timetable or contractual terms. The Black Badge Lounge has a strategic job. The dealership calls its new Black Badge Lounge the first of its kind, introduced for Black Badge's tenth anniversary. Rolls-Royce describes Black Badge as its rebellious alter ego. Giving that identity a dedicated room extends the idea beyond vehicle finishes into the setting where customers encounter the brand. Tom O'Gara summarized the intended experience in the supplied announcement: "The innovation is in the experience," he said. That is a revealing statement of priorities. The dealership is positioning time spent with the marque as part of the purchase, alongside the machine a customer eventually takes home. My reading is that this approach could deepen client engagement and encourage more ambitious commissions. The release does not establish that it will increase sales, attract a particular age group or improve retention. A lounge is a strategy expressed in architecture; its commercial results still require evidence. There is also a useful limit to the exclusivity argument. A distinctive specification may be deeply satisfying to its owner without attracting the same enthusiasm from the next buyer. Personal meaning and resale appeal are separate considerations. Commission the car you want, but avoid treating individuality as a guaranteed investment return. Spectre still needs an ownership conversation. Spectre Series II appeared at the opening as the marque's latest all-electric model. Its presence connects the commissioning story with a practical change in ownership: choosing an electric Rolls-Royce also means choosing how and where to charge it. The event announcement is not a road test or a technical specification sheet. The federal guide to all-electric vehicles explains the battery-and-motor arrangement. For a prospective Spectre owner, the useful discussion goes beyond propulsion to daily routines, parking arrangements and charging access. Personalization can make a cabin unique; it cannot make energy requirements disappear. The Department of Energy's guidance on charging stations distinguishes charging equipment and power levels. Buyers should discuss installation requirements and the routes they actually use. Ask the dealer to explain the exact vehicle's charging capabilities rather than assuming every available charger delivers the same experience. Environmental claims deserve similar care. The EPA's explanation of lifecycle emissions includes vehicle production and electricity generation. Electric propulsion alone does not settle every environmental question about an individual car. The release makes no quantified environmental comparison, and this showroom opening supplies no basis for adding one. A historic car sets a high bar. The other notable display was the Petersen Automotive Museum's 1925 Phantom I "Round Door." The announcement says it originally carried Hooper coachwork before Belgian coachbuilder Jonckheere supplied its aerodynamic body in 1934. Its circular doors make the idea of radical personalization immediately understandable. That heritage is compelling, but contemporary buyers still need ordinary checks. Use NHTSA's recall lookup for a specific vehicle. For a pre-owned purchase, the FTC's Buyers Guide guidance helps explain warranty disclosures. Prestige does not substitute for paperwork. The new showroom's strongest proposition is access to a more considered commissioning process. Its real test will be whether the attention lavished on the surroundings carries through to clear specifications, dependable communication and ownership support. The room starts the relationship. The car, and the service behind it, must sustain it.

To make more money, Rolls-Royce is aiming higher on price, not production. Oct. 5, 2026 at 2:52 pm The New York Times This April, Rolls-Royce unveiled a new model meant to look down at even the highest of high-end cars. Its battery-powered roadster, known as Project Nightingale, is imposing and intentionally impractical. Though it is as long as a Cadillac Escalade, it sports only two seats. Like an elite speedboat, it's all prow and tail. Limited to 100 units globally, this handmade vehicle starts around $3.5 million. That's before customization options, which are myriad and de rigueur, and could add 50% to the price. This makes it not just the venerable British carmaker's top offering, but also an exclamation point on its business strategy: expanding profit by catering to its rich customers' desires for something personalized and conspicuously consumable. "We wanted to respond to the growing demand that we see from our clients to create coach-built cars," said Chris Brownridge, CEO of the 122-year-old business, which the BMW Group has owned since 1998. The demand is real. According to the Rolls-Royce, all 100 Project Nightingale were reserved before the project was announced publicly. Coachbuilding isn't new to Rolls. During the company's first five decades, every Rolls-Royce was coach-built. Rolls-Royce would sell a rolling chassis with an engine, drivetrain, instrument panel, steering wheel and upright "Pantheon" grill, and clients would hire a specialty firm to construct a body to their specifications. Rolls never entirely gave up the practice, as it has recently demonstrated with its Sweptail coupe (just one was made, topping eight figures) and Droptail roadster (four of these were built). But it is now emphasizing in-house coachbuilding, doubling the size of its manufacturing plant in southern England to accommodate the practice, without noticeably increasing its annual production capacity. More, and more complex, customization processes also invite clients "behind the curtain," as Brownridge said, to meet with designers, engineers and executives, access and direct involvement. Advertising "People consuming luxury don't just want things. They want stories, they want experiences. They want to, with the most ambitious clients, create a legacy of something which they'll hand down to future generations," he said. Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, a consulting firm, sees alignment here with the desires of the very affluent. "These clients are willing to pay for value," he said. "And that is not only functional value, but personal value." To serve, and catalyze, these desires, Rolls-Royce has opened "Private Office" locations in key markets: New York; Shanghai; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Seoul, South Korea; and at its headquarters in Goodwood, England. Here, top clients work directly with advisers who prompt their idiosyncratic fantasies with the latest materials and capabilities - be they on an "entry level" $370,000 Ghost sedan, or a one-off coach-built vehicle. According to Philippe Fabre de la Grange, Rolls-Royce's head of bespoke, the options go beyond the burl veneers and flawless Connolly leather hides for which the brand is known. "We're playing with technical fibers, with new textiles integrated within lacquer, with new types of material that we use in the context of marquetry - not only carefully curated woods, but mother-of-pearl, abalone, metal," de la Grange said. He also mentioned hand-painting, embroidery and the enhanced use of light and projection. Rolls-Royce is constantly seeking fresh "canvases" for in-car personalization. Clients can now design constellations of thousands of tiny rheostatic LEDs to be impregnated into their vehicle's door panel, headliner or cargo area. They can have personal text or iconography engraved on the reverse of their spherical metal climate vents. Advertising "It's like the lining of a jacket," de la Grange said of these practices. "You don't show it off straightaway, but you know it's there. It makes you feel good. And if you want to flash it, you can." On the vehicles' exterior, plebeian paint will not suffice. Colors can be developed and named exclusively for a client to match a favorite artwork or article of clothing. Finishes can feature frosted, layered, crystalline, color-shifted or laser-engraved elements. Rolls even maintains a special workshop, the EX Vault, which, like James Bond's "Q" gadget workshop, gathers designers, engineers and craftspeople to experiment with new materials and processes. "We want to be pushing the boundaries, doing new content, evolving skills," de la Grange said. The company's hiring of artisans has helped increase factory head count by around 50% in the past decade. Of course, Rolls-Royce isn't doing this simply to keep dying skills alive. "At the highest level, our goal as a business is to create value," for clients, but also for the business and shareholders, Brownridge said. According to Michael Dean, global head of automotive research at Bloomberg Intelligence, volume in the ultraluxury automotive business is expected to stagnate through 2030. He attributes this to shrinking demand in China, owing to punitive ultraluxury taxes and a shunning of ostentation, and in the Middle East, related to regional instability. Advertising "To improve profitability, we see luxury brands increasing prices," Dean said. "But also providing more limited editions and more personalization." Customization is "hugely profitable," according to Dean, yielding margins of "well over 50%." In fact, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that while Rolls-Royce made up just 0.2% of the BMW Group's 2.5 million car sales in 2025, it produced 13% of its operating profit. Adding to this bottom line is that when clients want a new technique or material incorporated into their car - a new seating material, or even an outré dashboard color - Rolls-Royce can graciously charge them for the development costs. "The opportunity to work on new content in itself has a high perceived value for our clients, because they're able to differentiate themselves," de la Grange said. "So, it's something that they're willing to pay for." Rolls can further its gains by selling similar practices or components to other clients once any exclusivity arrangements end. Other industries have adopted similar tactics. Fashion houses such as Hermés have raised prices to emphasize craftsmanship and scarcity. The jewelers Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels now intentionally sell fewer, higher-priced, individuated pieces, even "destroying" lower-level inventory to maintain low supply and high prices. The avant-garde watchmaker MB&F has forsaken expanded production, catering to a dedicated "tribe" of buyers, with increasingly artistic and customizable offerings. "I think this concept is taking a leap now that there's a lot of commodification - via AI and 'efficient' manufacturing - in the luxury industry, with a small l," Pedraza said. "A true Luxury industry, with a capital L, means personalization, customization, co-creation, totally bespoke. That category is really beginning to thrive." Perhaps the only challenge for Rolls, Dean said, is that such extremely customized vehicles will struggle to find buyers should they ever enter the secondary market. Pedraza counters that their over-the-top amenities and connection with notable celebrities, heads of state and captains of industry could buoy their value. Sponsored. For his part, Brownridge believes these clients are unlikely to ever sell these commissions. "They're like masterpieces that they'll hang on their wall," he said. "And they'll pass them to their children, which fits with this clear trend of creating legacies." If Rolls can maintain its exclusivity, while enhancing its offerings and providing clients with the kind of relevant access that makes them collaborators and co-conspirators, it seems poised for continued success in this new Gilded Age. "Wealth will accumulate at the top," Pedraza said. "So, Rolls-Royce has very little risk doing this." This story was originally published at nytimes.com. Read it here. 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