Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Ferrari club at Rolls Royce

[Erik Nielsen (judge4re]

I will say that after seeing the new 101EX at pebble that I have
respect for what BMW is doing with RR.  The new cars are cool for what
they have been designed to do (like the mondial).  I went to Cornes in
Tokyo on Friday and saw both the regular and lwb phantoms and they are
impressive.  Maybe my corporate lifestyle is causing me to look at
cars from the backsest more than I used too...

Or it could be that I can't get my fat ass in some ferraris now!



On 10/3/06, Britt2Asa [at] aol.com <Britt2Asa [at] aol.com> wrote:
> The West Midlands Group of the FOC UK headed down to Goodwood today to visit
> and tour the Rolls Royce factory. Heres how it went if you are interested.
> (if
> not delete now)
>
> A friend of mine in the FOC use to work with the now managing director of RR
> Motorcars at BMC many decades ago. He was able to arrange a visit for 19 of
> us
> and a tour of the new factory so at 700am this morning we headed south for
> the 204 mile trip to the southern coast of England. We had a 456GT, a 550,
> Mondial 3.2, Mondial 3.2 cab, 328GTS x2, 330GTC, and a 355GTS between us
> plus a few
> non Ferraris. After a spirited cross country drive and a great lunch in a
> country pub on the outskirts of the Goodwood estate we arrived at the
> factory at
> 3pm and parked all the Ferraris out front in their courtyard along with 5
> new
> Rolls.
>
> We were given a 30 minute talk by the managing director and than a two hour
> walking tour of the assembly plant covering more than one mile!
>
> Now I haven't really had any interest in RR, I don't have one and never
> planned to buy one but seeing automobile assembly plants is a hobby of mine
> and I
> have toured Ferrari and Maserati multiple times alnog with Peugoets Ryton
> plant
> and the Browns Lane Jag factory before it closed. Rolls was a bit different.
>
> The factory is half built under ground and blends in very well with the
> landscape (this part of england is very very pretty and besides Lord March
> didnt
> want to look out the windows of Goodwood house and gaze over his 24000 acre
> estate and see a factory so its low and almost totally hidden from view. The
> factory is right across from  the Goodwood motor racing circuit and only
> about a
> mile from Goodwood race course (that would be the one for horses). It opened
> in
> 2003 and to date as built 2500 cars, all Phantoms, both normal, long wheel
> base and extended long wheel base. less than 800 cars a year are built and
> they
> complete 5 per day. 550 people work there and it is a very quiet and clean
> environment. There are 18 stations after paint and each station allows 85
> minutes
> to work on the car. This is of course much slower than almost any other
> assembly plant including ferrari. First we toured the paint shop which has
> the only
> 4 robots at the facility, painting the car takes 5 days. Next the 18
> stations
> are followed as the car is assembled; this takes another 5-6 days. lastly
> 7-10
> days are spent in testing and final prep so each car takes about 20 days to
> build. The amount of bespoke work is far in excess of anything I saw at
> ferrari, every car is built to order and every one is different. The
> combinations of
> leather, paint, and wood in each car was really something to see.
>
> If you haven't seen the new Rolls in person it is a very big and imposing
> car. Not beautiful but damn it has presence. It was interesting to stand
> next to
> a car with the 6.75l engine running and you could not hear the engine at
> all.
> thats 450hp and 0-60 in 5.8 seconds on 2.5 tons of car! For the art and
> craftsmanship of automobile manufacturing it was even more impressive than
> Ferrari
> so if you love cars in general and ever have the chance it is worth a visit.
>
> Lastly we did see some of the new convertibles on the assembly line. They
> are
> still in the process of building the 50 preproduction models (this is the
> one
> with the wood deck cover for the convertible top that looks like a Riva
> powerboat) that you probably saw pictures of in the car mags this summer.
> Pretty
> neat looking and the wood work is done by a firm in Italy...Apparently they
> have
> 450 orders for this car already so along with the 3 sixes of Phantoms the RR
> factory is sold out for the next year or so as of today.
>
> After the tour the factory was closing and a bunch of the workers came out
> front to look at the Ferraris and talk about cars with us so we stayed
> around
> another hour and took a bunch of pictures.
>
> Very interesting and if you ever make it to Goodwood and have the time try
> to
> book a visit to see this factory and how they make these cars cause it is an
> education in itself and worth a visit.
>
> BR in the UK
> 1986 328GTS (LHD 89,940km) Died August 19, 2006 Shrewsbury UK
> 1980 400i (RHD 72,000 miles)
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