Dedicated to Rolls-Royce & Bentley Motorcars ... - Magazooms

Photos Pininfarina
1
Bob DeKorne/Hagerty
Tuner Cars Part II
Pininfarina Hyperion
Sabu Advani (AZ)
2
making its debut at the Gooding & Company auction
tent 1 at Pebble Beach and, later, on display on the
Concept Car Lawn 2 , Pininfarina’s latest creation
received an excellent reaction from the crowd. In the autumn
of 2007 British car collector Roland Hall commissioned the
Italian design house to create a one-off vehicle based on the
Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé, emulating the look
of a 1930s sporting car. The typical long hood of that era and
the necessarily short tail and aft-placed cockpit were achieved
by deleting the stock car’s rear seats. This allowed the driving
position to be moved backwards by 400 mm. The soft top folds
behind the seats under a wood-lined cover. The carbon fiber
bodywork encapsulates the two seats snugly and to compensate
for the diminished storage space, two compartments were created
in front of the windscreen to house small items or sports
equipment, such as the owner’s two hunting rifles.
The interior has remained largely unchanged and there are
no significant mechanical changes.
Roland Hall dedicated the car to the memory of the company’s
late chairman and CEO, Andrea Pininfarina, who was killed
in a road accident this August. Neither Pininfarina nor the
owner are disclosing the price. Hall is himself keenly aware
of the fact that the days for such highly bespoke cars may well
be numbered. Even prior to Andrea Pininfarina’s untimely
death the firm had only recently managed to get support for its
turnaround plan to bring the company back to profitability. An
agreement with its creditors to reschedule the company’s debt
will now commit an extra 100 million Euros from shareholders
towards future product development. Pininfarina is also intent
on designing and building their own electric car, using batteries
and technology supplied by the French Bolloré Group.
©The ©The Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce
Owners Owners Club, Club, Inc. Inc.
9074 THE FLYING LADY November / December 2008
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