2002 Rolls-Royce Corniche Convertible

The auction car is said to display fewer than 19,000 miles from new, and is one of just 32 left-hand drive examples built for the final production year–three additional examples were built as rhd. Total Corniche V production did not surpass 400 examples, and several sources claim as few as 329 were made.

Though the car wears a nose treatment styled after the contemporary Silver Seraph saloon, its grand proportions, elegant, yacht-like profile, and distinct tail styling betray its Bentley Azure roots.

Built from 1995 - 2003, the Series 1 Azure was a large, beautiful convertible GT car styled and partially built by Pininfarina. Ignoring for a moment the Azure was itself based on an RR platform, one could say that the Corniche V was the only Rolls ever based on a Bentley, rather than the other way around.

At 18’ long and weighing nearly 3.5 tons, this is a very large car, the scale of which doesn’t quite come through fully in photos.

The interior presents similarly well to the exterior, underneath an automatically folding convertible top with thicker, more luxurious lining than found on most hardtops.

Materials are all top-notch, including rich veneers, Wilton wool, and Connolly leather, and charming quirks like the analog outside temperature gauge and polished metal “organ stop” ventilation controls add to the car’s deep character.

Motivation is provided by Rolls’s traditional “six-and-three-quarter liter” L-series ohv V8, but fitted with a turbo for 325 hp and a whopping 544 lb-ft of torque from just 2,100 rpm. The transmission is a 4-speed automatic, a world-class unit supplied by GM.

Fully sorted, these cars combine high refinement with a fantastically smooth ride and operation.

The car is sold with limited documentation.

Though the first four Silver Shadow-based Corniches were quite exclusive in their own right, nearly 7,000 were made over a quarter century–by comparison, fewer than 400 Corniche V’s were made over a brief three-year run. Perhaps less objectively, the later, Pininfarina-styled cars are much prettier to boot.

Estimated $105,000 - $120,000.