Much has been said about the rich getting richer during the pandemic, which is easy to understand conceptually. But nothing quite brings it home like the sheer number of Rolls-Royces being sold.
Rolls-Royce said Thursday that it had delivered 1,380 cars in January, February and March, a number that it said is the “highest-ever first quarter sales results in the marque’s 116-year history.”
Rolls-Royce also said that it has orders for cars well into the second half of this year, meaning that you can expect Rolls’s run to continue. Rolls-Royce said the record number is simply evidence of how good Rolls-Royce is at being Rolls-Royce. A healthy sign, given that the automaker is owned by BMW.
“We’ve responded to recent challenges with our customary boldness, imagination and inventiveness, underpinned by meticulous planning and a relentless focus on our customers’ needs and requirements,” Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Rolls-Royce’s CEO, said.
Rolls-Royce’s quarterly sales were up 62 percent compared with the same period last year, a sign of how much Rolls has come to depend on China, where Rolls sales went “close to zero” because of the pandemic last February.
Rolls said that the second-generation Ghost was key in moving all those cars, along with the Cullinan, the Rolls SUV (sorry make that SUW, or sport utility wagon). Most of those cars might even be driven by their owners rather than chauffeurs.
“We are very much a self-driver’s brand nowadays,” Müller-Ötvös said a couple of years ago. “We might have formerly been chauffeur-driven, but that has completely changed. The minority of cars we sell are for chauffeurs, with the exception of maybe the Phantom in long wheelbase form. Everything else is purely driver’s cars.”
Which means you’ve got to retire the jokes about Rolls owners being only passengers; instead, feel free to mock them for their choice to become a Rolls owner, full stop.