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Secret plan to build mother of Rolls-Royce: The Asian Age
London, Nov 16: The most expensive luxury car in the world will be built in Wales under plans being drawn up by a secret consortium.
London, Nov 16: The most expensive luxury car in the world will be built in Wales under plans being drawn up by a secret consortium.
Project Zircon is well under way and the consortium plans to start production within the next four years. The car will be more expensive than a £250,000 Rolls-Royce and would be the consummate luxury model, full of wood and leather and entirely made and funded in Britain.
It is likely to be built on a site between Cardiff and Swansea and will bring 700 jobs to the South Wales region. Consortium members are thought to have contacted the Welsh Development Agency to discuss financial aid. Professor Garel Rhys, head of automotive studies at Cardiff Business School and one of the world’s foremost motor industry experts, has carried out early feasibility studies.
Models costing more than the price of a three-bedroom house are rolled out every month by carmakers. Such demand for cars in the motoring stratosphere has encouraged Project Zircon, and Prof. Rhys believes that it can tap into a niche for a purely British car, powered by a British-made engine and with no backing from a foreign multinational. Although Bentley and Rolls-Royce are still made in Britain, they are owned by German companies: Bentley by Volkswagen and Rolls-Royce by BMW.
Professor Rhys told The Times: "Project Zircon is a well-funded project and stands a very good chance. The idea is to have a car that distils the old characters of Rolls-Royce and Bentley which have been lost, so it will be a direct descendant of the models that made those names famous. It will be the most expensive car on sale and, in the beginning, the design and personality of the car will have to define its image, but it is a very exciting idea for Wales and the British car industry."
How quickly Project Zircon will have a car ready to join the stable of expensive British thoroughbreds already on the market remains to be seen. The Germans and Italians make supercars but it appears that the cachet of a British badge has not tarnished, even after years of crisis and the handover of Britain’s mass producers to multinationals making world cars designed in studios in Stuttgart and Tokyo.
Prof. Rhys says that makers on the Continent and in the US lost their ability to make super-luxury cars as far back as the 1930s. "The umbilical to the great cars of the past was never broken here But we have never lost our skills and abilities in making true luxury and performance cars, and companies outside Britain have recognised that. That is why Volkswagen and BMW went to Bentley and Rolls-Royce to find their highest-level models and why luxury and performance cars remain a true British strength."
Project Zircon is well under way and the consortium plans to start production within the next four years. The car will be more expensive than a £250,000 Rolls-Royce and would be the consummate luxury model, full of wood and leather and entirely made and funded in Britain.
It is likely to be built on a site between Cardiff and Swansea and will bring 700 jobs to the South Wales region. Consortium members are thought to have contacted the Welsh Development Agency to discuss financial aid. Professor Garel Rhys, head of automotive studies at Cardiff Business School and one of the world’s foremost motor industry experts, has carried out early feasibility studies.
Models costing more than the price of a three-bedroom house are rolled out every month by carmakers. Such demand for cars in the motoring stratosphere has encouraged Project Zircon, and Prof. Rhys believes that it can tap into a niche for a purely British car, powered by a British-made engine and with no backing from a foreign multinational. Although Bentley and Rolls-Royce are still made in Britain, they are owned by German companies: Bentley by Volkswagen and Rolls-Royce by BMW.
Professor Rhys told The Times: "Project Zircon is a well-funded project and stands a very good chance. The idea is to have a car that distils the old characters of Rolls-Royce and Bentley which have been lost, so it will be a direct descendant of the models that made those names famous. It will be the most expensive car on sale and, in the beginning, the design and personality of the car will have to define its image, but it is a very exciting idea for Wales and the British car industry."
How quickly Project Zircon will have a car ready to join the stable of expensive British thoroughbreds already on the market remains to be seen. The Germans and Italians make supercars but it appears that the cachet of a British badge has not tarnished, even after years of crisis and the handover of Britain’s mass producers to multinationals making world cars designed in studios in Stuttgart and Tokyo.
Prof. Rhys says that makers on the Continent and in the US lost their ability to make super-luxury cars as far back as the 1930s. "The umbilical to the great cars of the past was never broken here But we have never lost our skills and abilities in making true luxury and performance cars, and companies outside Britain have recognised that. That is why Volkswagen and BMW went to Bentley and Rolls-Royce to find their highest-level models and why luxury and performance cars remain a true British strength."