Archive for category Rolls-Royce
The Rolls Royce and India, a Long Association
Posted by in Rolls-Royce on July 16, 2011
Rolls Royce is a name to reckon with in the field of luxury cars. But in India it has a special place among the elite who simply love this car. No doubt there are other luxury cars like the Maybach and Porsche, but the Rolls Royce commands a unique place among the Indian rich, in particular the Maharajahs of India, who took to this car like nothing else matters.
This luxury car has been part of the Indian Maharajahs psyche much before India achieved independence. At that time owning a Rolls was a status symbol among the Rulers and Maharajahs of India. French Author Lapierre in his book ‘Freedom at Midnight’ brings out the fact that on an average an Indian Maharajah owned 3.5 Rolls Royce cars. The Maharajah of Patiala owned nearly 27 of these luxury cars.
These cars followed him in a procession as well as transported his 10 wives. In fact when the Rolls Company once refused to give him a car as per his requirements, the Maharajah Bhupinder Singh started using the cars to carry garbage. This news reached the Viceroy and he intervened and requested the manufacturers to accede to the maharajas wish. Once the car as per the Maharajas specification were delivered, the carrying of garbage by these luxury cars of Bhupinder Sigh was also stopped.
Most of the Indian elite owned these cars. In the museum at Calcutta,the car belonging to Rabindranath Tagore is also kept, that brings to the knowledge of all and sundry, that philosopher poet who was a Nobel laureate also owned this model. The Maharajah of Kashmir also owned a gold plated car that moved about Srinagar when he was the ruler. The first car off the manufacturing line after the Second World War was bought by the Maharajah of Baroda. Read the rest of this entry »
The New Limo Rolls-Royce On The Road
Posted by in Rolls-Royce on July 16, 2011
Rolling onto the roads this month is the new Rolls-Royce limousine. Unlike its predecessors, this limousine has something new up its sleeve – it runs on electricity. The classy British car makers are proud to announce their first Rolls-Royce limousine based on the Phantom model, which is to cost a hefty 1 million pounds.
The New Rolls-Royce is a remodelled Phantom model, with a greater price tag. The original Phantom cost a mere £300,000 – kid’s money compared to the 1 million you need to fork out for the new electric Rolls-Royce. Although in fact the new electric Phantom or the Phantom Experimental Electric (EXP 102) will not as yet be available for general release, it will be displayed throughout the world to help gage public opinion on electric cars as they replace oil fuelled cars.
This limousine is a zero emission vehicle that can be charged from the mains in your home. It is environmentally friendly and cost effective, as it costs as little as 2p per mile, compared to 8.1 p for oil fuel based cars. It saves a large amount of money per year, perhaps, cutting costs by a quarter. Although you do need a substantial amount of capital to pay for the car to begin with.
Although like all luxury cars from Rolls-Royce, this car is for the super rich alone. But despite this, it is a great piece of engineering that proves electric powered cars can combine with luxury. It’s a great advancement for electric cars and could mean that not so far in the future most of us can own electric cars.
But for now as car manufacturers experiment with electric powered vehicles, we are to only see them on display till they become readily available. There are still a great number of problems, such as how harsh weather conditions affect performance, that need to be overcome as yet. Electric cars are still in the early experimental stages, but as technology keeps evolving, we are to see within the next decade a new fuel based vehicle on our road. Read the rest of this entry »