Rolls-Royce Motor Cars PressClub · Article.
ROLLS-ROYCE ARCHITECTURE
17.04.2020 Press Kit
When developing the latest generation of pinnacle luxury products, Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke Collective of designers, engineers and craftspeople demanded the freedom to create products on their own terms: to continue defining true luxury without expecting a single component to deliver an experience it was not intended to.
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Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
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Author.
Helen Wilson
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
When developing the latest generation of pinnacle luxury products,
Rolls-Royce’s Bespoke Collective of designers, engineers and
craftspeople demanded the freedom to create products on their own
terms: to continue defining true luxury without expecting a single
component to deliver an experience it was not intended to.
Rolls-Royce’s proprietary spaceframe chassis architecture met
these demands. Its flexibility and, most importantly, scalability,
freed designers to serve the aesthetic demands required to create
pinnacle luxury motor cars, allowing them to proportion key areas such
as the dashboard-to-axle ratio and front and rear overhangs on their
own terms. They were set free from the confines of existing production
platforms. Additionally, its aluminium construction delivered
engineers and craftspeople an acoustically superior, rigid canvas onto
which they would create new benchmarks in the experience of luxury mobility.
These quantum leaps were made with one purpose: to better
service the most demanding consumer group in the world; the
Rolls-Royce client.
Developed for luxury
Sir Henry Royce began his
automotive career by building an improved version of a 10hp
two-cylinder Decauville – the first car he bought when his eponymous
electrical company found success. When Charles Rolls first
encountered, and ultimately drove Royce’s machine, he knew immediately
that he had found a British car that could outshine any Continental
competition. He agreed to sell all of the cars that Royce could build.
In the first two years of the marque’s existence, Rolls-Royce
produced ten cars. In 2019, the company delivered 5,152, the highest
annual total in its history, to customers in over 50 countries.
Rolls-Royce has innovated for almost a century to set the benchmark
and satisfy the most discerning patrons of luxury. At the heart of its
latest innovations is the Rolls-Royce Architecture.
Rolls-Royce announced the development of the new aluminium
spaceframe in 2015. Eschewing the received wisdom of the mainstream
automotive industry, this decision represented a departure from the
notion of mass brands sharing a platform with one basic set of
underpinnings from which they would create numerous models.
Furthermore, it revolutionised the super-luxury motor car as we know
it, allowing an unerring focus on the creation of the most luxurious
and silent means of travel in the world.
Rolls-Royce Architecture, also known as the Architecture of
Luxury, defines the next generation of Rolls-Royce motor cars,
enabling them to deliver incomparable ride quality, acoustic
characteristics, passenger comfort, exterior presence, and interior
space. The platform comprises an aluminium spaceframe that can be
scaled and adapted for a diverse range of luxury products.
Visionary Engineering
Rolls-Royce Architecture
has been designed and engineered from the ground up to be scalable for
a range of different Rolls-Royce models. Additionally, its innate
flexibility means it can be adapted from one model to the next to
accommodate a range of different power and drivetrain layouts.
It is simplest to understand Rolls-Royce Architecture as four
fixed points at each corner of the motor car. The distance between
these points is defined at the discretion of the marque’s designers
and engineers: bulkhead, floor, crossmember and sill panels are all
able to be stretched and shrunk to accommodate the product, be it a
Phantom, Cullinan or highly Bespoke Coachbuilt commission.
Aluminium was selected for Rolls-Royce Architecture due to its
lightweight qualities and higher acoustic impedance compared with
steel, reducing external noise entering the cabin. Its construction
further optimises the material’s acoustic properties, with engineers
eschewing traditional methods; instead introducing extrusions and
complex internal structures to both improve the rigidity of the motor
car and eliminate flat, resonant surfaces.
The largest ever cast aluminium joints in a body-in-white,
combined with double-skinned bulkhead and floor sections, better
insulates sound. This delivers two key benefits: the isolation of
external noise and the optimisation of sound characteristics inside
the cabin.
Engineers are also able to ‘tune’ the acoustic performance of
Rolls-Royce’s famed proprietary Bespoke Audio system at the
architectural stage. Exceptional low frequency performance is
engineered into the very fabric of modern Rolls-Royces as the
architecture incorporates a resonance chamber built into the body’s
sill section; the frequency response of the Bespoke Audio speaker
component, which varies from model to model, defines the chamber’s
size and shape. In essence, the motor car itself is a mighty subwoofer.
Uncompromising, unrivalled luxury
While a global
testing programme of motor cars underpinned by the marque’s
architecture began in 2014, Rolls-Royce’s proprietary spaceframe did
not feature in a production model until 2017 with the launch of the
eighth-generation Rolls-Royce Phantom. This motor car was met with
critical acclaim and continues to be defined by the marque’s clients,
as well as experts in the media, as ‘the best car in the world’.
Demonstrating the flexibility of Rolls-Royce Architecture, it
was adapted for heavy all-terrain use and applied to Rolls-Royce’s
transformative SUV, Cullinan. The component parts of the base
architecture were reconfigured into a spaceframe that was higher and
shorter with minimal overhangs to aid with steep departure and
approach angles. Additionally, engineers would benefit from its
exceptional body stiffness to improve traction and handling on rough
terrain while offering the remarkable on- and off-road ride comfort
expected by the marque’s clients.
Rolls-Royce Architecture allowed the design team to imbue
Cullinan with proportions that are faithful to the marque’s aesthetic
pedigree. They were also able to deploy the architecture’s flexibility
in a more subtle fashion. By slightly increasing the inner sill height
so the door closed below it, the sill is protected from dirt and
provides a ‘clean’ egress from the motor car. Those exiting a Cullinan
that had recently been used to its full off-road potential could do so
without fear that they would mark their trousers, skirts or dresses.
The future of Rolls-Royce Architecture
The
marque’s proprietary aluminium spaceframe will underpin all future
Rolls-Royce motor cars. Its flexibility, scalability and unique
construction will safeguard the marque’s unique position as the
ultimate arbiter of super-luxury transportation and the world’s
leading luxury house.