This is Rolls-Royce’s newest coachbuilt model, La Rose Noire, the first in a quartet of Rolls-Royce Droptails that are being handmade by this specialist division. Each car will be substantially different in detail, if not in overall form.
A close relationship with traditional coachbuilding is how car makers like Rolls-Royce began, by building a ladder frame chassis and drivetrain that would be ‘clothed’ by a dedicated coachbuilding firm, either in the UK, Europe or the USA. All of these specialities eventually blended together in the modern monocoque era – starting after the Second World War – when chassis and body became united in a structural whole.
